Balloon Progress is getting closer!

Well as you might of figured out by now i have been undertaking a lot of balloon projects. Sadly most of these are not really to do with my building my balloon. I finished up making 20 tank straps at the start of the week that i am attempting to sell to members of the kiwi community however i haven't had any bites yet which doesn't phase me. Tank straps are one of the few ballooning items that take up very little space but come in handy from time to time.

One of the other benefits of sewing up these tank straps is to test my machine and kind of iron out all the kinks prior to sewing the balloon. The exercise of sewing has taught me a lot of things about the machine and i have learnt to sew a little better.

The major issue surrounding the sewing machine is the clutch motor. They are horrible motors for control and its pretty much all or nothing when it comes to sewing. I have sorted out minor control however riding that line between slower than hand cranking and full speed is not easy, because of this i bit the bullet and purchased a servo motor which has a led control which modulates the top speed of the motor. Once again spending more money on sewing machines however i have saved money else where so i am happy to spend it on something that will improve the overall quality and potentially save me time unpicking.

As can be seen in the image below we have finally finished making a banner from an old skirt. which was hastily made this week so i am truly embarrassed by my sewing skills. We pulled it off a dead balloon last year which showed a lot of signs of history so we thought it was worth saving.

What can also be seen is the beginnings of a panel template. This is for panel F which turned out was measured wrong and it wasn't noticed until we went to cut the panel. So this is the first step back into the world of balloon building. Once this is cut ill have to set aside time to finish cutting the remaining panels which should only take a couple days. After all panels are cut we will have to mark all the panels to ensure they are sewn on the right side as it seems one side might have more coating on it.

Finally i have a friend of mine making a new cover for the tank i purchased back in March. Hopefully both covers will be completed this week and then she can start work on Katie's tanks. I purchased the fabric for the tank covers from Hamilton canvas. It cost me about $12.90/m and it only takes about 800mm wide of fabric to make a tank cover and pocket. The fabric i got is a oxford nylon with PVC backing with a velcro strap on the back of the tank to make it easier to remove around inspection time.

See what i mean a lot of projects just not many to do directly with the building of the balloon. It seems that every project i am doing away from the actual building of the balloon has an degree of benefit towards the overall project.