Easy DIY Reel

Donny Leon King (kdonny940@gmail.com) sent me one of his homemade kite reels from Lousiana:

"I have modified an existing [electrical cord] reel that has yet to fail. It has nearly zero resistance when winding in. It also has extremely large storage capacity for line. I have reeled in 3000 feet of line under tension and it is still going. It is an awesome modification and with some personal design could be patented into a perfect reel.

The reel itself is nothing but an extension cord reel from Walmart. In its present state it will not work for the tension from retrieving line will cause the reel to warp. Took me few minutes to figure that one out but hours for a solution. I used a 4 inch schedule 40 PVC coupling cut down to 3¼ inch in length to reinforce the reel by removing the handle and inserting the coupling. As the coupling is a little smaller in diameter I used plain old drinking straws to fill the gap between the reel and the coupling.

Naturally the black handle has to be removed and modified. This is the key element in the whole apparatus for it free floats once modified and replaced.

I have taken it to the max by retrieving 8000 feet of line with moderate tension with no issues at all. True enough when one is retrieving a hard pulling kite such as Dan Leigh Little Bear another modification, an extended knob, works awesome. Sort of like the Stratosphere reel. Still with the 80 lb. line, no issues."

The local TV station even did a story on Donny, Waiting on the Wind.

Front of reel

Back of reel

I have disassembled the reel he sent me and reverse-engineered the steps to building it. First, you need to purchase the following items:

• Bayco KW130 - Heavy Duty 150 Cord Storage Reel, about $7 at Walmart. This reel is 13" in diameter, but I bought a smaller reel and the interior dimensions and the handle are identical.
  
• 4-in x 4-in dia Schedule 40 Coupling, about $2.50 at Lowes, Home Depot, or most hardware stores.
  
• Two 3" long 3/16" (#10) bolts, nuts and washers (4)
• Some plastic drinking straws

1. The first step is perhaps the trickiest. Donny was able to split the black plastic handle down the middle and extract it from the reel. The way I did it was to use a rotary tool with a fiberglass disk to cut a slot in the center, then force in a prybar to break it apart. Mine broke apart just as his did, cleanly along the glue joint that held the two halves together.

2. Now take each handle half and cut or sand away the raised edge that held it in the reel. I put mine in a vice and used a wood chisel to chop them away, then did a little sanding. Drill four holes so you can insert the 3" long bolts later.
3. Because the new PVC pipe is smaller in inside diameter than the original orange reel you will need to use a Dremel tool or hacksaw to cut away some material from each side of each handle part. Below you see the before and after.
   
4. The last bit of cutting is to trim down the length of the PVC coupling so that it is only 3¼" long. You can use any wood saw for this, or a hacksaw. The coupling's outside diameter is about 5", perfect to fit inside the reel.
5. Now cut the drinking straws to 3¼" long and flatten them. Next push as many of them as you can around the coupling while it sits in the middle of the reel. I used a pair of pliers to push mine in.
6. You're almost done. Now cut away the little feet at the bottom of the tim so they don't catch on the kite line. Likewise, cover any exposed bolt heads with plastic tape so nothing catches here either.
7. The last step is to re-attach the two pieces of the original handle. It will be trapped inside the reel, but free to move about. Here is the completed reel:

---