All Ballooned Out!

Haven't posted recently as we have been very busy over the past couple of months. First we had Wairarapa which was an amazing time and It was a great first fiesta for me followed by Waikato. Had a great time at both and felt comfortable flying with balloons around me.  

While I was in Masterton we had to get some repairs done so I met a great guy also interested in building a balloon which will turn out to be a great point of contact for me i believe. 

Lead onto Waikato where I managed to score Mitch for a few hours. We managed to sew the first panel which turned out to not be the case soon after. I found a minor screw up where I hadn't measured one side of the template right which meant I had to cut a whole new set. Luckily we managed to get out of way prior to Canowindra. 

Just before Canowindra I cut a deal to buy the last single Stratus ever made which is a bit special. It has less than 10 hours use and you can even see the bottom colour of the can. 

I picked it up in Canowindra and had a little bit of a play. So why did I buy a stratus? Its a powerful burner which all liquid set up. Vapor pilot lights to me don't really have an upside so having less hose is great. Secondly fuel, in NZ we have a horrible fuel mixture which means modern burners struggle to keep filters clean resulting in failures. In recent years i have seen this a couple times so hopefully the Stratus will chew through it.  Lastly the burner came with a mount for a firefly which is a bonus.

With one piece of bottom end sorted i now look to sort the basket and tanks.

Fiesta Season

So with fiesta season nearing i have been busy clocking up hours. Katie's balloon has a fresh airworthiness certificate so i have been giving strata some flight time as a "helpful boyfriend". Haven't flown it in 8 months so it was defiantly an experience.

A couple of things have happened in the last month. I finally sat down at the sewing machine and made a little bit of progress. The sewing machine is now set up for 4 layers of nylon. Its a hell of a process to dial it in but once its done in theory you shouldn't need to touch it. My scrap piece of fabric shows the amount of work involved in getting the tension right.

It has taken me another month to sit down again at the machine after getting everything right. I have now moved onto practicing my folding skills with the assistance of the folder. I have a few choice words to say about the french lap seam however i wont put those in writing. The professionals make it look easy but i guess it will be like riding a bicycle. After my first attempt i decided to test the strength of everything. Had the sewn fabric over a bar with my hanging and it didn't even phase it! Throw into the mix 1100kg break strain load tape and you can understand balloons are over engineered.

Sadly i have only spent about half an hour at the machine trying to fold but leading into fiesta season its time to start focusing on everything regarding flying. Looking forward to making my debut as a pilot at Wiararapa and Balloons over Waikato. I have senior pilots stepping aside to let me take their balloons out which is very daunting but its going to be a great experience and i just hope i can meet their expectations.
I have some new bits of kit in my pilot bag that i am looking forward to getting some use out of around fiesta season. Might have to do a bag breakdown at some point.

Hello 2015

Well 2014 is finally finished which is a good reason to give an update on the balloon. In December i finished up cutting the final nylon panels of the balloon. I still have a roll of nomex to cut however that will be cut later once all 20 gores have been assembled. There are a few reasons for this but the main one being nomex frays easily and the less movement it has before sewing the cleaner and easier it will be to sew. The other reason leans more towards the frustration of cutting it out.

On top of this i placed an order with Cameron Balloons for crown rings and temp flags before i left for Japan which also arrived in December. I received one last item since my last update which was a borrowed seam folder. With that crucial piece i have no excuse to not sew the balloon. I guess this is part of my procrastination but i believe once i sit down at the machine ill get a little bit done.

The panels have been sorted into their gores which will make it easier sew once i tune in the sewing machine and start the sewing of the balloon. As i have mentioned time and time again everything with balloons is super-sized including the time taken to organize everything. Took me a couple of nights just to label each corner and sort the individual panels into gores.

Finally at the end of small projects

Alright so i am procrastinating leading into a test on Friday which will be closely followed by packing for Japan which i will be leaving for in the early hours of Saturday morning.

I figured i have been crazy busy with a variety of jobs that i should probably do a quick update before i head off to Japan. We have finally finished all the tank covers including Katie's balloon which got some love while it was at my place for a couple days along with the truck which had its brake system replaced. We are 100% ready for ballooning season and ready to clock up some hours to participate in Balloons Over Waikato in March.

So while Strata was at my place we managed to fit and finish all the tank covers. Along with varnishing the floor, installed the wrapped instrument panel, repainting the firefly symbol, installing a new floor mat and several other fixes while it was pull apart. It was a really productive weekend and maintenance weekends on your kit are really beneficial to keeping everything up to par.

With all that kind of stuff out of the way it puts me in a hard spot to put off progress on the balloon. So i am guessing once i get back from Japan i will be pushing to progress with the last little section of cutting and the sewing side of it all. A couple weeks ago me and Neil managed to cut 20 panels and make a pattern which is a poor effort but considering we only planned on completing a pattern it was a productive day none the less.

So at this point we have panels A,B,F and O (Nomex) to cut then cutting will be done and i can organize it all and start sewing the gores. I will get there eventually and BOW 2015 won't be the debt of Poison Ivy but it might see a test inflation if i really get my shit together which is a tall ask.

Back pedaling with balloon progress

Since my last post we screwed up the template we were doing which was annoying but it has to be perfect. We now have some more suitable tools like a long length of box section which will help covering those distances of panel F which is one of the biggest panels.

So we haven't attempted to cut out a new template so we are not progressing at all on that front. With an assignment and test coming up i will be focusing on class work with planning for Japan on the side which i leave for on the 25th which is the day after i have my final test of my degree (hopefully).

Alright that is enough negative, lets talk about what i have managed to achieve in the last month or so since my last post. Alright so i haven't managed to get a single inquiry for tank straps but i couldn't care less. Rebecca has been over and working on the tank covers. At this point she has finished the two Kav 55l Tanks and now working on the Worthingtons of Katie's. At this point we have sewn together one electric blanket and still have to remove and sew the other two once we are ready to sort out the positions of plug holes and where the pockets will sit.

The tank covers are only one part of sorting out Katie bottom end. The images below are of the new shortened tie-off i have sewn up for those occasions that a shortened tie-off might be more suitable i.e. windy inflations. Also having a spare might come in handy.

Next item on the cards was wrapping Strata's instrument panel with some carbon fibre wrap to pretty it up a little bit.

It hasn't made its way back into the balloon yet but that will probably happen once we get ready to fly again or pull it apart to sort the pockets on the new tank covers however with Japan only 4 weeks away it may have to wait.

One of the little projects i did one night while Rebecca was working on the tank covers a took a leaf out of my friend Mitch's book and made a pocket to throw commonly used tools to keep them out of the way but not out of reach. What can also be seen it the very new looking switch which i got with the brushless motor i got this week. I decided to swap over from a clutch motor because the clutch motor runs continuously and when you push the pedal it contacts the full throttle motor Because of this it makes the clutch motor a little bit 1950's. With the new motor the machine is a lot easier to control, quieter and more energy efficient. Bonus marks for my light plugging straight into the switch box. Hopefully spending the money on a new motor will save me some time with unpicking.

Its looking like once i am back from Japan i will be busy with the general Christmas rush and clocking up hours so i can fly in Balloons over Waikato. I will hopefully find some time to sew finish off cutting and start sewing. Once i get the sewing down i will hopefully knock out a large amount of the balloon but then again we will see because it seems like every post covers the same wrap up.

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.

Table + Survey Progress

After building the table we discovered we were slightly short which created a problem for the panel that i incorrectly cut. Panel F is sadly one of the biggest panels and we came up only 100mm short which was frustrating. Because of this we extended the table by 300mm so now everything is sorted. Along with this change dad attached a roller at the end which will make it a lot easier to cut lengths. Sadly we are so close to finishing cutting the table wont get a full work out.

Survey: The survey wrapped up about a month ago and making up all the graphs has taken me a while however tonight i finally finished up and posted it on my website which is kind of unofficially launched with a few gaps in the website. Hopefully launching the half finished website will push me to put some more time into it. Overall with Angus going to Europe i will find a lot more time at nights to tick away with projects. It's nice to play games all night however not productive towards the list of goals i have.

Hopefully the survey will give at least one person the kick they needed to get out there and make a meet happen or a progress with plans they have made. I know some of the answers will be very beneficial moving forward for me however we will see if it will make a difference.

With the survey pretty much wrapped up its onto the next set of projects. I couple of weeks ago i booked in for Saga, Japan so i am saving my coins until then. Along with this a friend of mine purchase a stack of stickers from China for cheap so i am in the middle of inquiring about getting some BAANZ die cut stickers for cars/trailers which i would like to sell onto members however i am still to run is past the committee or get an EOI from people. Time will tell but realistically i should finish the projects at hand rather than picking up new ones!