Fabric Day!

Well i have been very busy over the weekend with a variety of things including flying, a party, working, the fan and not to mention the fabric finally arriving! I finally have found a moment to write about the last few days.

While i was at work on Friday four bundles arrived which had about 860m of fabric. This was made up of 3 different kinds (1.3/1.9 double sided silicone coated and 1.9 double sided polyurethane coated) The 1.3 and 1.9 silicone were really test lengths that i ordered to test the integrity. Hopefully i will use the fabric for a model or something useful.

Anyway back to the main fabric which i am very pleased with. Obviously for me to have no concerns or niggles would be very odd however the list is very short.

1. The colours are dead on however in certain lights the gap between the mid and bright green could of larger
2. When the fabric is crumpled in the hand it displays more visual creases unlike the silicone coated fabric or the single side coated variant of mine however this will become better over time.
3. The fabrics rigidness is concerning but the same solution is applicable.

 Other than those small things i am very happy. Obviously i knew about the weight of the double sided coating however the weight of the fabric wont unmanageable for me however for others that are slightly smaller they might have issues on solo flights.
due to the 20 gores i plan to cut down weight when it comes to not having hyper-last in the top along with lighter load tapes. As there is 20 tapes i can lower the strength of each tape even though the strength of the tape i am planning to buy is strong enough to hold the entire vertical  load on just two tapes.

Lastly i leave you with a selfie of a very happy girl! If Katie was this happy you couldn't imagine how stoked i was once i saw that the amount of money i had spent was at least on the right track. Once the panels are cut out and coating/ fabric defects are rules out i will be a very happy man. 

Hopefully the next update i give you all will be on the completion of the fan which is currently waiting on the fan hub, paint and a balance check prior to starting it up. 

Lesson learnt!

Well my fabric got into port on the 28th of December 2013 and today (15th Jan) i paid the invoice to release the goods to me! if your thinking 18 days to get my goods from Auckland to my doorstep is a very lengthy layover you would be correct.

After spending a day on the phone and emailing my shipping agent, they finally found the goods and the next phase began which on my end consisted of emailing back within the hour or waiting on a reply. After filling out importer papers i  left the ball in the court of my shipping agent which had various questions which took several days to cause any progression. After about 14 days in i got involved in the process and bought customs into the fiasco which seemed to solve the issue within a day.

This leads to today which saw my bank account shrink by $945NZD and the goods about to finish there journey (i hope). The big lesson i learnt from this is if you are going to import anything you have to inquire as soon as the goods leave the port and get the paper trail out of the way prior to arrival.

It has been a few rough weeks sorting through the countless bumps in the road however hopefully i will have my fabric by the end of the week and that will drive me to progress with planning/cutting my panel templates.