Fabric and Fan progress

I have been very slack in the last few months. My fabric is currently sitting in Auckland port at the complete wrong time of year. The boat pulled in on Saturday morning and was ready for pick up as of Saturday night. So i will call them on Monday to sort out the specifics like import tax etc.

Now the current situation is out of the way, let me fill in the blanks of the past two months! A month ago i purchased a Titan 6.5hp motor for $299NZD which was a bargain in comparison to a genuine Honda which would of set me back around 3 times as much. With the Christmas rush i haven't been able to progress as much as i would of like due to time and money. Hopefully in the new year with the fabric here i will finally gain some financial traction and time to boot.

A friend of mine Neil has a friend that will be able to help me out with bending my fan frame. Once that is complete and sitting on wheels i can progress to getting a new hub made up to fit the new motor. Hopefully these two steps will progress faster after the new year however i am at the mercy of generosity as they are favors and not jobs i am paying top dollar for.

Another purchase of mine towards the fan was a set of wheels from Trademe which set me back about $70 for a set of four. The photos displayed in the auction didn't accurately describe the wheels therefore we had to make modifications. As displayed in the middle photo below the wheel hub goes past the edge of the rubber which isn't ideal so Dad machined the outside down. The other issue with these wheels was the listed height which was slightly off which created a minor redesign of the frame aka raising the cage to stop the wheels from rubbing.

On the other front by the end of January i hope to have the fabric cut out which means i have to obtain the fabric, cut templates and proceed to cut each panel. Hopefully once i get started it will light a fire in my belly and i will progress rapidly.

Project on the side

At this point i am lacking some of the key equipment required to fly this envelope of mine and its not like me to lack a plan however i am diving knee deep in this project without knowing of the bottom end ill fly in once its complete. In spite of this lack of direction i have found an inflation fan that needs a complete overhaul. 

This project is similar to the sewing machine and the balloon itself, that being purchasing something that needs a new lease on life or going to whole DIY route.

Sadly with this fan a new lease on life isn't as straight forward as the sewing machine where i kept almost everything and applied some elbow grease to get it all nifty again. The plan for the fan is to flick off the motor (once its running a lot smoother) to anybody who will give me a buck for it along with the frame/wheels.

Realistically i am only keeping the prop and cage which will be attached to a titan 6.5hp engine and a stainless frame. Obviously everything is in the planning phase and only time will tell to what degree my vision will come to life (Attached below is the design at this point in time).

The work ahead is mostly money related which at this point therefore nothing is happening at the moment besides the elbow grease jobs. Once i am on holiday from class i will proceed with straightening up the fan cage followed by looking into powder coating the cage is possible. 

The next progression is purchasing the motor which will set me back $299 NZD which is significantly cheaper than a Honda motor. The motor is a Chinese knockoff of the Honda design and is not as top quality/won't stand as much abuse as a Honda motor. 

 

Taking this into account by my calculations an inflation fan will do between 5-10 hours a year and considering these motors probably do that in a day or week i doubt it will break any time soon. Even if it does break in 5 years i will be financially in a better place to buy a Honda motor or replace it with another Titan motor if it proves to stand up to the abuse.

 

Fabric Nightmare

So since my last posts my colours have been modified slightly and i have finally raised the funds to proceed to the next step of the build which is locking in the core details of my fabric including colours, coatings, weights, cost etc. I am sure Katie slapped me in my sleep a few times because a lot of discussion happened concerning the optional coatings.

The whole discussion was sparked by my friend Mitch in Australia due to him receiving his fabric just over a month ago. He went for PU coating followed by UV which was on coated on the same side as the PU coating which doesn't help considering PU coating to my knowledge goes on the inside of the envelope.  So with this in mind i made some inquiries with our go to man for fabric Andy Wang. With much discussion and headaches in Katie's case i had finally decided on double sided PU coated 1.9oz without the UV coating (due to cost constraints).

The numbers i got from Andy:
Cost: 1.74USD/m 1.9oz Pu coated (both sides)
Weight (with extra coating): 1.92oz-2.06oz (yd2) or 65.10g - 69.85g (m2)
Total Fabric Weight: 48.119kg-52.06kg gross fabric weight
Total Weight: 75.638-79.579 kg

Envelope Weight (Projected number via dream program):

WEIGHT CALCULATIONS
Weight of fabric               : 48.119- 52.06 kg (including the overlap of the parachute)
Weight of Nomex            : 6.321 kg
Weight of tapes   (1)        : 13.200 kg
Weight of tapes   (2)        : 0.427 kg
Weight of tract. cord        : 0.374 kg
Weight of centr. cord       : 0.221 kg
Weight of command line   : 0.769 kg about without (with) a return pulley
Weight of crown line        : 0.499
Weight of cables              : 2.585 kg
Weight of crimpings         : 0.900 kg (32 crimpings)
Weight of 4 carabiners     : 1.000 kg
Weight of crown ring       : 0.500 kg
Weight of 2 pulleys          : 0.200 kg (without a return pulley, elsewhere, add a pulley)
Weight of the thread        : 0.524 kg
Total weight                    : 75.638-79.579 kg

Keep in mind these numbers are just estimates however in terms of weight its obviously heavier than Katie's 1.3oz 74,000 which is something like 65 kg's however 80 kg's doesn't seem to bad considering a 90,000 Kav is in the 110 kg range.

Colours and Chair rebirth

So in my previous post i updated everyone on the sewing machine mostly. That is my main focus at this point due to it being the work horse behind this whole adventure, besides me of course but i am not a horse!

Anyway on the side i have been doing little things including looking into rip line rope which has caused a few heated discussions with my friend Mark Mitchell in Australia which is also building his first home built. I have been looking into a variety of options and have found the rope that is the right colour, high break strength (1900kg) and feels good in the hand. 

Another of these little projects was converting a $10 sewing seat into a home for my bottom. The huge upside of this little project was it cost me nothing! I have used various spare bits laying around the house e.g some Cordura fabric i bought about a year ago. I stripped the old cover off and handed it off the my lovely girlfriend which took charge of the cutting. I sewed it back together thanks to mums sewing machine, some knowledge i gained from the compulsory sewing class at middle school became very handy.

After some added padding and a polish she is good to go! It doesn't look to bad considering i added the extra padding and cut the pattern based on the old padding not to add my lack of sewing ability! oh well thanks to the holding power of staples its scrubbed up nicely.

The next small job which has turned out to be a huge nightmare is the colour selection. One of the huge benefits to getting fabric manufactured for you is the ability to pick your own colours which depending on how you ask it can be very troublesome. The supplier we get our fabric from allows us to pick any Pantone colour which caused issues with my colours because sadly my key colour didn't match any Pantone colours  however the fabric manufacturer  is allowing me to send a sample of the colour i required. Due to the colour being only present on my monitor it was inaccurate and a physical sample would be needed.

So after a stoke of luck we found all the colours close enough to what i wanted at the paint shop. So with that problem coming to a close i have no issues regarding the actual order of fabric except my old friend $$.
So in conclusion it is back to work for me and a 2 minute noodle diet for a month or so until i can raise the other half of the money.

Sewing Machine 90%

After a end of term rush with class i am now on holidays living up the working life with my plate lacking more and more space by the day. I have had a few bits on the side lately to do with class, computer fixes and work however the machine has made leaps and bounds. Sadly the only thing limiting the projects progression at this stage is my lack of time but if you were to ask my girlfriend she would say i spend a lot of that down time in the garage with my other girlfriend.

So much has happened since my last update and i cannot believe the time frame between each post. The frame has been painted and put back together with a fresh pair of bolts and screws. Now it sits in the garage with the trimmings all attached read to go. The only steps to be made at this point are replacing a piece of particle board that mounted the what i call "thigh foot release" basically it unlatches the foot from the raised position which no doubt will come in handy.

One of the biggest challenges so far is finding a 12mm double lap seam folder that doesn't kill my bank account and until recently my bank account was preparing for the hit. Finding a double lap seam folder is simple enough except for A) 12mm finish size and B) At a student price. Seeing as the item i am after is specialized i had a lot of trouble getting it under $200NZD. I managed to obtain details of a great guy called Murray which deals in custom attachments which i wound up with paying $75.90 for a secondhand one.

I guess one of the unique issues of building in New Zealand is the lack of competitive market when it comes to certain items therefore items can be priced freely which creates a interesting platform when buying items off blindly however it no different to internet purchases. You win some, you lose some which is very much the case with the first thread tree i bought which turned out to be a lot larger than expected.

Anyway back to the developments at hand. I have added a power board to the sewing table along with a draw for the unpickers (may they never be used), needles and bobbins. I also managed to pull up a booklet for the machine on Google docs which had almost all the pages available in preview mode which i copied for myself (see picture below).

So with Katie on my case i have been trying not to sink money into the other areas of the project however i do get a bit of a reprieve when i mention the investment of the sewing machine and various items will be required at some point. So with my last purchases of a lamp and folder i am back on track, saving again which will keep Katie happy!

Step by step

Small steps in varying areas are being made at the moment. Most of my money is sinking into the sewing machine at the moment with more and more improvements being planned throughout the weeks of it sitting on the garage floor. Since my last post the machine was serviced and cleaned up by "Hamilton Sewing Services", followed by bills that bankrupted me for the week as work underpaid me which put back buying parts some of the equipment required for the construction cost of the balloon.

This week with pay day only one sleep away i have a set list of items and a budget for the week ahead which will be a novelty compared to the last 2 weeks which was having less than $20 each week remaining in my bank account after a service, gas, phone bill and my template paper. Hopefully this week i will get paid my missing pay so i can progress with buying the various bits for the sewing machine.

Shopping list

Trademe:

10.99 Machine Belt (M-40)

22.00 Bobbin Winder

12.49 Thread Nippers (4)

3.40 Small Unpicker (2)

3.98 Large Unpicker (2)

eBay:

25.00 Bobbins (20)

30.00 Spool Stand

Another item yet to be added to the list is a replacement bearing for the hand wheel which we removed this week to find the bearing wasn't sounding to healthy, that will be $30 along with a box of beer for Katie's father which got a 316 stainless ring made up for me which will serve as my crown ring.

I looked into a variety of options when it came to getting a crown ring made. I initially wanted to get 6000 series(or higher) aluminium which has high heat transfer but is lighter than stainless with the added benefit i could anodize it any colour i wanted. However 6000 series aluminum wasn't easy to come buy in 5-6mm thicknesses therefore i opted for the heavier, lower heat conductive options of stainless steel. The ring i have now weighs something like 860g which clearly feels heavier than other crown rings i have held however i highly doubt this will have any functionality drawbacks on the envelope. As for 5000 series aluminium which from what i am told is the common type of aluminum i believe this material would if been fine to use considering the directional stress on the crown ring and a ring sharing some strength characteristics with eggs in the form of distributed pressure along the surface area. My reasoning came down to not pressing boundaries on my first home-built along with the ring being one of the parts i didn't want under estimate.

Since the early years of my involvement in ballooning i have had a strange fascination with home building. Thinking of it now it was probably due to the fact that 30,000 is a unworldly amount of money for me and building an aircraft with my own two hands sounds like a hugely rewarding experience with the added benefits of it being a lot  cheaper and learning a new skill set.

Since the discovery of Chinese “made to order” fabric by Tem Smith my hopes of building my own balloon, spreading my wings and not relying on the generous people around me to gift me time in their balloons has become a plausible option due to being a student.

In my breaks from class I have been working trying to raise enough money to start the venture into the exciting world of home-building an XLTA aircraft. I remember a speech by al pachino in the movie “Any Given Sunday” he talks about life being a game of inches and how all those inches accumulate. This was very much the case when referring to saving. That extra shift moved me closer to the chance to work a little more too eventually put me into the sky.

Since early May I have been spending endless hours on the internet finding parts or useful tools to purchase when I had the funds to do so. Going into the project I planned to build my funds up then going on a buying spree after the fabric had arrived but reality stepped in and I couldn’t resist buying some pieces of the puzzle to keep my motivation going, some of these items included thread, an electric cutter and sewing machine.

The sewing machine I bought was a Juki LH-515 through a friend of my girlfriend’s father. I had no idea of its history besides the usual observations of age, surface rust being one of those characteristics (This is where buying the machine months prior to the big adventure had paid off). The sewing machine lasted about 10 minutes in the garage before me and Katie started cleaning/pulling it apart ready for a dose of “Elbow Grease”.

Elbow Grease:

•          Sewing machine service
•          Replace foot pedal brace
•          Frame reinforcement
•          Frame strip and paint
•          Replace all frame nuts & bolts
•          Replace all table screws

The first step was using a grinder with a wire brush disk to remove the paint and surface rust. With help from my dad I managed to get all parts of the frame stripped and coated in rust remover just to ensure the frame was rid of rust.