Making a Kite: Tie Support Sticks

Video Transcript

"Now, to give the sticks extra support, I'm going to show you how to tie them after we've glued them together, and to make a knot so that they'll stay nice and strong, even if there's a strong wind. So we go ahead, and we take the string, and leave a little bit extra on the end; hanging out, so that we'll have some room to tie it, and just go back and forth in a crossover motion; making sure that you catch both sticks. You can switch direction, you can go over from the left side, or over from the right side, and just keep weaving back and forth, until you see that there is very little movement on the sticks; that they're nice and strong and kept together. Now, the sticks are going to be placed into the dibbles that will be glued on the plastic, so it's not necessary to make it so that they don't move at all. But usually, even with a good knot, you can get them pretty tight, and you probably won't see too much movement on the sticks. But just make sure that they're nice and tight; stuck together. Then, after you've gone through a few times, take the last bit of string, and the other end, and make a couple of knots on top of each other, and this should help you keep the sticks nice and strong and in place. As long as you're using a good piece of plastic, you'll see that the kite will be nice and sturdy. After we've put the string around the sticks, and we've cut the ends, what we do is we take a little bit of glue; here I'm using a type of rubber cement glue, and we put it around the knot, and this will help it stay in place, so the strings shouldn't separate where we've made the knots. Now the sticks are flexible. They can still be pushed up and down a little bit, but they definitely won't come apart. They're very sturdy; stuck one to the other. Now, once we cut our plastic in the shape of the kite, we're ready to put our sticks inside, and make it nice and sturdy, and help the kite keep its shape."