[balloon-makers] Building beautiful balloons

[Jonathan Wolfe <private e-mail address>]

   Great to hear from you, Greg! I have heard tell of
this early tiedyed balloon of yours, but have never
seen pictures. Would love to! Wow... 1970 - the year I
was born.  
  My goal in ballooning is not to be first, or
fastest,
or biggest, or highest or farthest or most accurate...

my goal is to be the most beautiful!
  And to that end, I've been working on a bulbous 
Piccard shape, which is in my mind the prettiest 
shape going. And, having learned the technique 
for making the patterns - which is graceful and 
beautiful itself - I now understand why people 
like Boland use the patterns they do. When I cut 
out the pieces for Julia Dream up in Vermont, it
took a long afternoon. There were no patterns! 
We just stacked the fabric and layed out straight-
edges and razor cut the trapezoids. With the curve-
lofting technique, it is a whole (big) project in 
itself just to cut the patterns. It took three of 
us two full nights (till 5AM) to get the patterns
made. And I'm still cutting the fabric, and only about

half way up the balloon. Lots lots LOTS more work
this way, but you know what? It's going to be 
completely worth it. This is truly balloon sculpture. 
A really beautiful process. I'm at a really 
exciting point now, as the structure is defined,
but I can't see the final shape until it's all sewn
together. I can't WAIT!
   The upshot is - it's harder to do it this way, 
but if what you value is beauty, it's clearly 
worth making smooth, round, voluptous curves...

-Jonathan Wolfe







--- Greg_Winker@Dell.com wrote:
> 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
>  

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