Sorting through the various drawings and articles I have for making a pocket-sled kite, it struck me how variable the quality of the drawing were, being neither properly constructed engineering drawings nor sewing patterns.
This is probably where my picky side surfacing but a having qualified as a design engineer, and worked with sewing patterns since my pre-teens, it irks me when people don’t follow basic recognised systems.
Don’t take me wrong, I am truly grateful and respect people who publish and share their kite plans, but all too often because they have failed to follow accepted norms of engineering drawing, the drawings they produce are un-makeable because a key dimension is missed or un-flyable because the wrong datum has been chosen and the kite ends up lopsided.
This all started me thinking and wondering if it would not be better to produce kite plans, particularly sewn ones, as engineering drawings or sewing patterns. Regardless of how they start out, I always end up converting the drawing to sewing patterns in order to cut the pieces fabric for sewing. However sewing patterns are drawn 1:1 and are for the most part un-dimensioned, whereas engineering drawings are dimensioned and can thus be drawn to any scale. Scale drawings are ideal when publishing then in a book or on the internet since they can be produced in a readily printable size for the end user to either scale up on paper or directly onto the fabric but they must be properly dimensioned.