Making an Inflatable

[thebaronn]

Hello!

I was wondering if anyone here has made an Inflatable?

I was over on the PC forums and I got a bunch of "it would be to hard" from the the guy whose website is buyinflatables.com (LOL!)

He said I would need this fabric: Nylon Permeable fabric

I googled it and I really got nothing. I will just have to take a trip to the fabric store I guess.


any help or a point in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!

thank you in advance

Eric

[-klb-]

First, it likely is a lot more difficult than you expect. Second, you have a lot of projects on your plate already..

But, I'm guessing that it is at least similar to uncoated nylon ripstop... Not sure what weight is normally used. This place has 1.1 and 1.9 oz uncoated nylon ripstop...


http://www.seattlefabrics.com/nylons.html#1.9%20oz%20unctd%20RS

Helps if I remember to past the link

[thebaronn]

I dont think that it is going to be easy, but dont tell me i cant do something, I think all of us are pretty resourceful people that do this madness.

And then of course the most important thing, im lucky! I will not be making it!!

My wife has said she will do it!

LOL!!

and my eyes are always bigger than my stomach!



Plan on 100%, finish 10% of it!!!!




and ty for the link

[-klb-]

I do know the secret to making sure one reasonable light show starts on time. Plan to have two large shows start on time.. The first year, the city park show wasn't too bad, with 209 channels, and about 55,000 lights. We put in a lot of late week nights, and even took a number of half days from work to get it all done. Our show at the house did not really go live until about Dec 15th, and I was still putting stuff up until Dec 28th..

This year, we added to the city park show, and wound up with 602 channels and about 130,000 lights. We made much more efforts to recruit volunteers, and we still wound up taking a week off from work, and working through Thanksgiving weekend, and barely pulled it all together at the last minute.. I think we wound up turning the house show on around Dec 12th, and put more stuff out until about the 20th, but I don't think we ever got more than 2/3rd of the channels put up, and the sequences were far from optimized for the new portions that were put out..

I still have the last two of a set of 8 elements that were planned for 2007 waiting to be welded together, and none of the set have been put on the house either year. Though one of them has been used heavily at volunteer recruitment efforts, and our presentation to city hall for funding.

This year, I already have 7 flats of lights that are supposed to be new elements for the house.. I think it is primarily pressure to keep us from planning too much more expansion at the city park. We will see when the house actually goes live this year..

[thebaronn]

My first statement wasnt directed towards you, Im sorry if it came of that way. I just take offense when someone tells me I cant do something (and they are trying to sell me something).

My display is no where near the calibur of others, but if I dont try to get better, bigger then where is the fun in that. If I didnt "dream" i would still have 1 strand of multi lights hooked on the gutter and thats it!

I also did not get 100% of my show until the 20th really (was waiting for replacement stuff) and I sequenced 2 songs after christmas (requests). And even then it still wasnt 100%.

I would be much more open if he said "its a lot of hard work, maybe we can save you some time, call me, let me know what you want and we can give you a quote" (you know, customer service type stuff).

[-klb-]

I did not think it was directed to me, and I fully understand that you have to have inspirations to make the show better. I'm just trying to caution against dreaming too far, and trying to bite off too much at once. There is a real risk of getting burnt out along the way.. To be honest, I don't think I would have set up any lights at the house this year, if I did not have a commitment to get in test hours on some LEDs.. They were the first bulbs up and sequenced on the house, and then it just looked silly without more being set up.. But, you know yourself best, and maybe the best way for you to handle it is to keep your current pace, and somewhere in your brainstorming of ideas, you will come up with the next new thing...

At least we know what we want to add for the house for 09, beyond going live on time. For the city show, I am finding it difficult to find an idea to take it to the next level. I do have a few substantial improvements to make on the existing layout, and some of the elements, and we have a couple of small new elements planned already. But the next cool thing is not jumping at me...

Maybe that is a good thing.. There are a couple of volunteers that would probably skin me alive after having wrapped 32,000 lights onto 10 pieces of 3 inch, 10 foot long PVC pipe, if I were to suggest too much for next year..

Hopefully we will get music selection for the park much sooner this year, and at least get the existing elements sequenced sooner than later.

[Vic Fortenbach]

I have been "toying" with the idea of modifing one of my existing inflatables, I want to "detatch" it from the other section. Seems simple enough. Just cut it and seal up the hole (cut). But the cut is over 10" long. Just sealing (straight sewing) the cut would make it look funny. I need to add a round section to make it look good. I was going to purchase another inflatable just for the fabric. Thats project # 754. for Christmas 2009.