Cutting Day 4 + Bad news

Day four did not end up being a very productive day. We managed to cut 40 panels when we realistically should of cut 60 however we hit a few road blocks and made some mistakes which were fixable but did put a negative vibe on the day.

So the day started with me loading up the car and forgetting the patterns which ended up being a 30 minute drive there and back to pick them up. Followed by not having a partner until about 1pm which meant once i had laid out the first cut i didn't have much else to do. I could of laid out the other 10 layers for that panel however i made the mistake of prepping to cut way before it ended up happening.

While i was waiting i did a few jobs such as measuring the next panel template to ensure it was right. Good thing i did this because i was a fair way off and the panel template will have to be re-cut. I also managed to sort out some of the off cut panels into panels A and B which will bring the total fabric wastage down. When we started cutting we managed to cut panel G, skipped panel F (Template was wrong) and proceeded onto panel E. We managed to cut the first lot of panel E (10/20) and on the second lot it went to shit essentially....
One of the layers underneath was not lined up and the panel went over the end of two panels. Because of this we swapped out for panel D. The tally for the day ended up being Panel G (20/20), Panel E (10/10) Panel D (10/10).

That brings us to today, as of last week i started back at Wintec with a new set of papers. One of the two papers i have is Project which is equivalent of 450 hours. This work load along with more time at countdown has led me to put the balloon on hold. I am hoping that during Balloons Over Waikato we will have a few rainy days to complete the cutting stage. Once this is complete the balloon wont be touched until the semesters end which will also be winter.

Cutting day 3

Well its been a massive day but it is not over for me. I am rushing to post the progress from day 2 and writing out todays progress before work in 25 minutes so it might be best to save this as a draft.

Right, progress as normal for cutting out the balloon. We managed to cut 60 panels again which means we are sitting at the 160/300 mark which is officially over half way! Because of time constraints we are not really getting as far i would of hoped. Due to my cutting location being open from 8am-5pm only on week days it means we are only really fitting 6 or 7 hour days in which  is my fault for not squezing more out of the day.

Initally i went in with the goal to knock this out in two days which is realistic for some however having 20 gores is a lot of fabric to cut cleanly/accurately in one swipe. If you look at it in that respect you can gauge why i havent met my pre cutting prediction of 2 days.

That wraps up this weeks cutting session. I am planning on cutting next week. Hopefully i will be able to knock out the last panels in a lengthy day. Sadly returning to the smaller panels at the top of the balloon this time wont speed up progress as i will be searching through my off-cut bag which i will hopefully reduce the amount of wastage.

On a side note i talked to a friend of mine which i have mentioned the fabric to in a pervious discussion and he is very interested. He works at a balloon manufacturer and would like to do a variety of tests (pull strength, tear test, porosity and water test) on each type of fabric i have. Hopefully the tests will give an insight into the make up of the fabric and give us an idea of its expected life.

Cutting Day 2

Day 2 of cutting turned out to be a productive day with 60 panels being cut which takes the total tally to 100/300. My assistant for the day was busy and didn't get in until 12 which meant I had 3 hours to myself. In this time I managed to cut the remaining lengths for panels J K along with all the lengths for J. 

The panels are getting larger now so progress will slow down slightly and once we get towards the top I will being raising the off cuts to see if I can salvage any fabric. 

So at the completion of day 2 I have panels J, K, L, M and N cut. 20 lengths of panel I prepared for layering/ cutting. With day 3 bringing in Katie to help I hope we can push through panels G, H and I which will put me past the half way mark of cutting. 

Cutting Day 1

So after taking a week to contemplate cutting i finally decided to start cutting this week. Day one saw a lot less progress than i initially thought we would of made however towards the end of the day we were rocketing along. Which was cut short by my awesome assistant Tim having to head to work.

We managed to cut out panels M and N which totals 40 panels. Tim and I laid the fabric to the length of the two panels and cut the sheet to length. This was repeated 5 times per colour to create 20 sheets which we then cut the M and N panels in sets of 10 layers.
We also managed to cut out 17/20 lengths for panels L and K which will be the last double panel length until we get into the smaller C,B,A panels which i plan on using the lengths which had defects that would of either visually affected it or structurally towards the end of its life.  Hopefully the smaller panels will fit around the variety of defects i found which was mostly on the black.

Sadly i didn't measure the length of fabric which has been benched for now but it was about 8 meters however majority of this is still salvageable.

The team over in Australia are pushing through sewing up Barbs 60k at the moment which is pushing me to make my own progress. Its busy times at the moment for XLTA Australia with one balloon at the final stages, another having trouble with Gores but has a weekend planned to push some progress and a couple back either in the planning/cutting stages.

Tomorrow for me however brings Neil in to hopefully help me for another 5 or 6 hours which will no doubt help see some more garbage bags filled with fully cut panels and my cutting checklist slightly more fulfilled.

Patterns done!

During my days off last week i completed my patterns which ended up taking two days because i mostly drew them up solo and called Katie over to help rule lines which in theory wasn't very efficient as i could of just cut the line straight away but a few times i discovered some short falls and wrongly ruled lines.

As i mentioned before the program i have used for this design spits out all the measurements required for each panel and gives me all kinds of numbers such as material requirements and pricing etc.

One of the discoveries i found in the research and development stage of the project is the program i am using spits out DXF files which is a autoCAD format. It displays a 2d drawing to scale of each panel therefore i converted the DXF to PDF which gave me a printable version. This gave me a idea of the shape, measurements and make up of each panel which in turn made it a hell of a lot easier.

So with the panels all cut on the second day which surprising took longer than i had thought i am now ready to cut fabric. A very daunting and scary prospect i must say. Its a hard feeling to describe you are cutting into something that you know has required X work and Y money but you need to cut in order to achieve the goal. Once i start cutting the first cut of panels i will be fine however screw ups are inevitable and no doubt ill learn a few things a long the way.

On a final note you are all probably wondering where the hell i am cutting. I talked about building my own cutting table which Katie said screw that Torpedo7 has tables used for packing. Just come and use one of those. So only on week days and the days i have spare i go to Collins road to make some progress. Hopefully i wont be there much longer but someone said to me on the phone last night, "Plan on it taking 2 days a week for a month. You may think it will be a 2 day job but let the days and hours happen".

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.