New Job so push pause

In the next couple of days i will be starting my new job in the IT field. I have mixed emotions about it but sometimes you have to do the right thing not the easy one. With that currently in the mix i have been trying to button up everything else going on in the background. The envelope has been sitting dormant for the past month and will likely be the case for August.

Through this project i have been ticking away living at home reaping the benefits of very generous parents. Ballooning seems to drain you of all your funds especially when your not doing any flying. At least nobody else is flying at the moment. That would push me over the edge if people were flying and i couldn't because all my money was going into getting setup. 

I recently paid a Cameron Balloons bill of $450 for the PRV's, basket bolts and a couple other goodies. Today i spent $400 getting the fabric for a basket cover, targets, bag material, tank covers and misc basket items. Expensive but if you were to purchase all these items it would cost at minimum triple the raw material cost. 

Lots is happening in the garage at the moment and i hope once i show everyone exactly how much work i have put into making it look/function well they will be thoroughly impressed. I remember about a year ago i was living on noodles because i was putting every cent into getting parts for the balloon. To get started well its not cheap even if your going to route i'm taking. Id hate to see the money being dropped for a manufacturers rig. Hopefully within the next couple of weeks ill be able to pay back my debt to my brother and sort the remaining $800. Once that is all sorted ill be out of the noodle phase once again and be faced with lots of labor.

The cheap fan i purchased has been stripped and sent off to be powder coated. Once it arrives back hopefully the gas tank will be painted up and it can all go back together.

Lastly we finally got the bottom end together after the frame came back from the stainless steel cleaners. It is crazy to think that its the same frame. Very similar result to the tanks i polished myself. It wasn't until after that you look back and realize what 20 plus years will do to your system. Once we got it all together we had a little bit of play then got straight back to work getting the foam flooring cut and carpet fitted.

Lot happening part II

Ok onto the second part of the chaos i call balloon building. So after cleaning the basket i bought it home to dry off. It seems a couple things had been done to the basket early on like the hide being coated in varnish and also the bottom of the basket seemed to have the signed of varnishing also.


When i got it home i noticed where mainfreight staff had tagged the basket it had gone though onto the wicker which took a lot of rubbing to remove most of it. As i mentioned in the previous post i took a lot of before pictures to show how much work i had done and what difference can be made with a little time/effort.

So i got this stuff called leather cleanser which apparently takes a layer off the leather. It worked alright i did notice the water being a different colour but all up it didn't make much of a difference to the raw hide. I followed this up by using tanners oil which soaks into the leather making it supple, waterproof and durable. That has made made a bit more of a difference. The leather is taking the oil and seems to be a little more lively. I have done about 3 coats and i will follow up with one or two more just to make sure its well hydrated.

The wicker when the basket arrived was a little dry but had good colour. Its always interesting the variety of methods that get thrown around to care for your basket and i guess it comes down to personal preference. I went for the more traditional way of caring for my basket which is using natural linseed oil. It is very slow drying which gives the wicker a lot of time to absorb the moisture. After about two coats its made a drastic improvement to the colour and strength of the basket.

A fan came in the basket. It is pretty rough but i have managed to pull it to pieces. The motor has been pulled to bits for general cleaning and checking over everything. It looks like cleaning up the surface rust, installing a new gasket seal, greasing of the bolts and a lick of paint on the tank  was all the motor needs.

Whilst giving the basket a once over i noticed the basket bolts were a lightly rusted so they have been removed and new bolts have been ordered. After 26 years even the most robust elements of the basket are showing its sign of age.

I have ordered fabric for the tank covers, basket cover, targets and the various basket goods. Once this arrives ill be busy back at the machine making all the elements for the basket. Sadly if i don't sort out all the bits of the basket prior to putting it into service it will likely go incomplete for all the unessential elements.

Lots happening part I

So last week my basket arrived along with a few other items inside. It has been pretty chaotic with everything going on but i have been slowing working my way through getting everything up to par.

So basket a Colt 77 built in 1989 which is in amazing condition for its age. It came with a map bag, fire extinguisher holder and dropline/pouch. All of the bits are pretty old so i have ordered fabric to sew up what i need.

The dropline is about 15mm wide which will be a pain to handle if i need to use it, so i will probably cut it up and use it elsewhere in the balloon. I have a spare dropline so that will be installed in the balloon once i have made a bag for it to go in.

The map bag was very solid and about the size of a piece of A3 paper so i have no idea what i would use it for so that's going to be replace with a flight manual holder. I have no idea what i will do with the bit that have come with the basket but they have a little historical reference so ill put them into storage.



Enough with the plans so the basket arrived on a Thursday. I took before photos of how i got it. It came covered in a Sky balloons cover which was tagged by Mainfreight staff which annoyed the shit out of me because any logical person could see its not something designed to be disposed. So opened it all up and pulled everything out so i could take it into get steam cleaned and wet vac'd.

surprisingly the basket was dirty and a floor of dirty water came out. The suede was in good condition its had a little bit of use which is evident on the down side of the basket. I plan to swap the down side to the up to give everything equal use. Its just a matter of looking after everything and giving it some love.

That is part one of the last couple of weeks so stand by for part two.