RE: [balloon-makers] Introduction

[private e-mail address]

Jonathan certainly knows how to tie-dye.  Julias Dream is one of a kind, but
it's not the first tie-dyed balloon.  That title would go to my own AX-5
homebuilt in 1970.  A couple of years later I tie-dyed a second balloon that
Chauncy Dunn gave to his daughter Kelly for her 16th birthday.  Compared to
Jonathan's design, these were both hack jobs, but they did turn out rather
well.  Some day I'll get my own website running and have pictures of them.

Jonathan has prompted me to final get around to asking a question about
balloon design.  I see (most) everybody using either the Smalley or Boland
envelope design.  These are both basically smooth surfaced balloons, ala the
Cameron N type.  I have always found the bulbous gores more pleasing to the
eye, my favorite being the Thunder & Colt Series II.  But have never found
anyone describing how you modify (or develop) a gore pattern for this type
of bag.  I took a look at a local Cameron Viva a few months ago and was
surprised at how the individual panels were cut.  Has anyone spent any time
on this?

Good Floating!

Greg Winker

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Wolfe [mailto:jwolfe2917@yahoo.com]
Sent: Tuesday, April 03, 2001 8:02 PM
To: balloon-makers@mail.deering.org
Cc: jonathan@supergroups.com
Subject: [balloon-makers] Introduction


Ok, time for me to jump in to this list and introduce
myself...
I'm Jonathan Wolfe, I live in New Mexico, and I built
my first balloon in '95, the uniquely beautiful
tiedyed balloon, Julia Dream. She's 50,000 c.f. and
I built her together with Brian Boland up in Vermont. 
Boland's a great guy, absolutely, but for my second
balloon I wanted something prettier, smoother, more
bulbous and graceful - So we're currently building a
90,000 c.f. Piccard, also to be tiedyed.  Just wait!!
It is on track to be done by Fiesta, and I'm so 
excited! I will always have a special relationship
with Julia - my first balloon - but I'm eager to fly
with more passengers, and also to take the art of 
balloon dyeing to a much higher level.

   On that note, I want to join in the fabric coating
discussion that's been going on. I'm intending to put
the coating on the inside of this balloon - not what 
Don chose, but I think the dye will be prettier that
way. And this is all about beauty. 
   The process I've developed for tiedyeing nylon
-(BTW I'm using white Carrington 1.7 oz ripstop)-
involves immersing the spiraled fabric into hot
(185 F) liquid dye for 25 minutes. I'm concerned by 
Don's comment that hot water is bad for nylon... I 
haven't yet done any rigorous strength tests on the
fabric after dyeing, except to pull test it (fine) 
and to check the porosity (apparently unaffected).
Anybody have any ideas on what I might expect down the

road? Is the hot water bad for the nylon or the
polyurethane? Any ideas on how to get some rigorous
testing done on the fabric? (Like, eventually I want 
to be able to get an STC on the fabric process so I 
can have the balloon companies build these things for
me). Would love some input on that whole process.
And, I've got much much more to talk about, but I'll  
leave it for future messages; this was going to be
just a brief intro. 

Good to be part of this innovative and creative
adventurous community!

-Jonathan Wolfe

Check out pictures of what the new - still unnamed -
balloon will look like at: 
http://www.sky-dyes.com

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