By Dan Beard
Fig. 30
is the
Broom-Straw Frame of a Fish Kite
and the paper cut for pasting. You will see that the streamers on the tail at F are not to be pasted over, but allowed to hang loose, and, if you make one these kites, make the two outside tail streamers at F three or four times as long as the middle ones, and three or four times as long as they are shown in the diagram. The fins E and E (Fig. 31) should be exactly alike so as to balance each other, and may be made of separate pieces of paper and then pasted on the kite proper as they are in Fig. 31.
Fig. 31
The gill flap H is also made of a separate piece of paper pasted only at the edge N O; this is not necessary, but done to give it a realistic appearance. The scales, mouth, and eye are painted on the paper with black paint or ink, and the belly-band attached to the wing straws, through the holes punched in the paper with a pencil-point, and the string is tied to the straws where they cross at their ends.
Experiments have proved that all these small kites fly well when thread is used for kite-string. I have made kites with very fine sticks, of about the thickness of slender matches, and let them up with thread, using three and four large spools of thread in one flight.
The Advantage of Broom Straws
is that one can stiffen the paper in all directions without materially adding to the weight of the kite, as in Fig. 32, the hawk kite. The lower edges D and D, in Figs. 32 and 33, are unpasted like the tail of the fish, so also is the bottom of the wings at F, except the small flat P at the points P and P (Fig. 32).
To make any form of kite, cut the paper according to the pattern you desire and then brace it with straws, like the example shown, in such a manner that it will keep its shape. When tails are necessary, make them of long strips of colored paper and they will add greatly to the beauty and decorative effect of your toy.