Gluing and Pasting Technology

How to coat the kite sails with glue and apply them to the frames is the focus of the gluing and pasting technique.

1. Brush with glue

Before the kite paper (silk) is coated, the frame often needs to be coated with glue in advance. What kind of glue is used, depends on the material of the kite sail and the desired mechanical properties of the finished kite sails. To glue paper or thin silk, white glue (wood glue) is currently the best choice. The strength of the glue application should be decided according to the fabric to be coated. In general, thinner glue is used for thinner and not very strong fabrics. For the strong fabrics you should use thicker glue. You can apply the glue easily and evenly to the frame with a brush. You should consider all angles and corners of the frame and make sure that not too much glue remains in the nooks and crannies. If too much glue remains in these corners, the stretched surfaces are no longer flat after the glue has dried.

2. Glue on the covering surfaces

During the gluing process, you should place the top surface exactly on the frame and take care not to move the sail to be glued, otherwise the glue will be wiped off. The top surface should lie flat and smooth on the frame and be equally tight at all points. Under no circumstances must some areas be tight and other areas loosely tensioned. If this is the case, the dried up kite can be completely deformed, which has serious consequences for the flight behavior.
After the top surface has been aligned on the frame, lightly press all glue points. Since normal white glue (wood glue) does not set as quickly, there is no excessive hurry necessary to wrap the sail parts around the edges. Shortly before the glue finally dries, you wrap the edges, then the degree of tightness becomes more even.

 

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Copyright 2002 ff: Hans P. Boehme