I don't steer via helium balloon and am unlikely to try to second guess
Ray Harlan. He may use 8 gores to get a smooth shape. One can make a
lifting balloon of many shapes from only two gores but the external
heat-sealed seams may cut or entangle your F1D. Turning the envelope
inside-out will not be trivial.
It is worth contacting the RC toy blimp folks and seeing what they can
offer. Toy RC blimps might be less expensive but lower quality than
Ray's specialty balloon.
Some "Mylar" blimps are (or at least were) made from 2 gores of heat
sealed polypropylene sheet. One supplier for this polypropylene was in
Italy but I do not have the contact information and this was in 2000.
The outside was printed but whether the inside was treated to permit
heat sealing is unknown to me.
After retiring from the local chemical company (Eastman Chemical, 33+
years), I worked a little for a local, now-defunct start-up RC toy blimp
company. I calculated and measured lift, tested motors, props,
batteries, built prototypes, test flew competitors' toys, and generally
played in the lab. <Grin> I was not an investor and our business plan,
quality, finances, and execution were weak. This start-up lasted about a
year.
The sealing iron that I used a few times was a soldering iron with a
rotating cylindrical tip (a router bearing).
Fred Rash
On 5/1/2014 7:05 PM, leop_at_lyradev.com wrote:
>
> My understanding is that Ray Harlan's balloons are heat sealed. I
> cannot say that they have no glued seams at all.
>
>
> By the way, the Harlan Mylar 35" balloon is made from 8 gores.
>
> LeoP
>
Received on Thu May 01 2014 - 21:03:23 CEST
This archive was generated by Yannick on Sat Dec 14 2019 - 19:13:48 CET