Text & photos by Santos of Coleman doing demo.
- Keep mylar rolled up until just before cutting and heatsealing due to bothersome curling, unless you have a big vacum table. - Test your teflon hobby iron heat setting on mylar corner scraps. Too low and the seams pulls apart easily. Too high and the mylar starts to look kinda melted. -Wash hands before working on mylar. Avoid touching areas to be heatsealed. - Seams are 1/2 to 1 inch or so. Thicker seams are heavier but hold gas better. - A paper pattern and felt tip marker are used to lay out razor cuts on mylar. Masking tape holds things down. Short carpet is good to work on with a piece of smooth cardboard moved along cutting or ironing line.
- Concentration helps. Visualize tiny helium atoms flowing freely thru seam flaws. Small deviations in ironing lines appear as bumps and wrinkles in blimp.
- Use small amounts of common mylar packing tape to attach filler nipples, payload anchors, etc. Nipples can be cut from a small light weight plastic bottles. Nipple is usually located at rear gore junction. - Loosely roll or fold finished envelope and store in a trash bag or box. - Avoid filling bag too fast or over pressurising.
This page given to the net by the High Performance Micro-Blimp (HPMB) project.
Thanks for flying PolyCosmos. Join us anytime.
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