Month: May 2018

House on University Ave…

This house used to be on University Ave, just south of UT in Austin.

Good friends, and good times.

The house was moved away in about 1975 or so.  I’m trying to find out where it was moved – I’d like to see it still around.

The house was built in the late 1800s, and would have been a very stylish home back then.

Almost ready for the more challenging sewing…

Each of the 18 fins have a small loop to attach the 18 bridle lines. We have extended that line from the loop back to the front piece of the kite, to better distribute the pulling force to the kite…

We’ve got the (31) pieces of the parafoil ready.  So far the sewing has been pretty straightforward, so to speak.  The next job will be to join both the front fins and the flat edge of the aerofoil shape to the 1.5M square front piece.  That will be a combination of tacking and pinning to make sure the seams get all the layers they should.  But the final sewing, putting the 1.5M square back piece onto the curved side of the aerofoil, creating the pockets, will be the most demanding.  Not only do you have to contend with sewing to the curve, but also making sure seams on both left and right side are inside their pockets.  And the last seam, as I remember from previous parafoil constructions, involves putting the entire kite into one of its pockets, and having to use extra care not to stitch through any of it when the seam is done.  I have confidence in Sophia’s sewing expertise!

Parafoil progress…

Sophia took this picture yesterday as I was cutting the nylon.

The new parafoil is now in pieces, cut from the bright blue material.  1 front piece,  1 back,  18 fins (6 each of 3 patterns) and 11 aerofoil pieces – 31 pieces of ripstop nylon in total.

Hot cut using  a soldering iron.  Sophia has added about 5 meters of bias binding.

I need to do some maths to work out the location of some lines that will help distribute the towing  tension, but figured drinking a beer has precedence.

A new parafoil gets started…

A local childcare centre was throwing out some stuff, including a glass table top which had been a bit defaced with scratching.  But a good size to put on top of our outdoor table to use as a kite cutting and pattern-making table.

I’ve calculated all the data points for making a large, but pretty straightforward, parafoil.  It will be the fourth ‘proper’ parafoil I’ve made over the years.

The finished kite will have 10 ‘pockets’ – I’ve never made one with more than 6 previously.  The kite will be about 1.5M wide and just under that in height – it will likely be too strong to hand fly.  I’ll need to tie it down, I expect…

I’ve marked the glass with marking pens – and it can be wiped off later to start another project.  Next job is to cut some brown paper pattern pieces.

My daughter Sophia is going to be doing all the sewing – that takes away a heap of trouble and worry for me…