Background: Milspec Soarcoat Fabric
North American fabric production has become almost non-existant.
There is really only one source of acceptable fabric for lightweight balloons made in North America: milspec [Military Specification] Soarcoat by Performance Textiles.
This fabric has a good blend of strength vs. weight, with the following specifications:
- Yarn Size: 30D (Denier)
- Yarn Type: High Tenacity Nylon
- Coating: Silicone (both sides)
- Finished Weight: 44-47 gsm / 1.3-1.35 oz/yd2
- Breaking Strength: 45 x 45 lbs (warp,weft)
- Tear Strength: 12 x 12 lbs (warp,weft)
Soarcoat has become prohibitely expensive as first quality fabric in the last few years, with prices now north of USD$12.50 per yard, and with 3,000 yards MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity) required for each color.
Homebuilt balloon builders have been successfully sourcing seconds quality soarcoat for more than 25 years, and some in our community have been doing large group-buys of seconds quality soarcoat, but quantities and colors other than military grey and white have been dificult if not impossible to obtain.
Minimum Fabric Specifications
Some other fabrics have been used with PU (Polyurethane) coating or a mix of Silicone and PU, but typically these fabrics are either much heavier, or do not have the minimum strength required for balloons (when new), which we consider to be as follows:
- Minimum Tensile Breaking Strength: 42 x 42 lbs (warp,weft)
- Minimum Tear Strength: 10 x 10 lbs (warp,weft)
BARD Custom Specification Fabrics
We have been dealing with offshore fabric mills for more than 10 years now, and have produced a number of fabrics to our own exacting specifications, used in our own special shape projects, as well as in some other balloons. This fabric has never been made widely available to the general public, until now.
1st Gen BARD 30D LIGHT 6.6
We have some small quantities of our first generation, first quality BARD LIGHT 6.6 fabric available.
This fabric is strong and made with more expensive 30D Nylon 6.6 yarn, square weave with ripstop, and with silicone coating on both sides. It weighs 44 gsm (1.3 oz /yd2) as has the following strength:
- Tested Tensile Breaking Strength: 45 x 43 lbs (warp,weft)
- Tested Tear Strength: 16 x 14 lbs (warp,weft)
It has a slightly crispier coating and a little less stretch than soarcoat which has one advantage – it makes it much easier to sew, but one small disadvantage, is that a completed balloon packs up about with about 5-10% more volume in the bag (compared to soarcoat).
We have the following colors in stock, in various roll sizes, immediately available, in full rolls only. Qtys in meters. Price is USD$5.70/m + shipping.
- White: 120
- Black: 236, 180
- Pantone Rubine Red C: 200, 178, 130
- Pantone Process Blue C: 188, 100
- Pantone 901: 100
- Red: 34
2nd Gen BARD 30D LIGHT HT
For our second generation fabric, we have worked with our fabric supplier to change the coating and increase the strength.
The new coating has a softer hand feel similar to soarcoat, and we’ve changed the yarn to 30D High Tenacity Nylon to lower the price. It still features a square ripstop weave.
This fabric with our custom specification coating is even stronger, with more than double tear strength over our 1st gen fabric, and almost triple the tear strength of soarcoat! It coated with a custom specification silicone coating on both sides, weighs 44 gsm (1.3 oz /yd2), and has the following strength:
- Tested Tensile Breaking Strength: 65 x 48 lbs (warp,weft)
- Tested Tear Strength: 28 x 27 lbs (warp,weft)
The price on this amazing fabric is currently available for USD$4.00 / meter.
This is our prefered fabric for making lightweight balloons!
Advantages:
- 68% cheaper than soarcoat!
- Stronger tensile strength, and almost triple the tear strength
- Available in any Pantone color
Other Details:
- Not in stock – custom orders only
- Specify your own Pantone Color(s)
- MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity): 1,000 meters
- MOQ per color 500 m (for a small additional fee)
- Manufacturing time required: about 6 weeks
- Shipping time: about 2 weeks
Other 2nd Gen BARD fabrics:
We have a number of other heavier ripstop nylon fabrics available to custom order:
- BARD 40D 6.6 SIL: 60 gsm (1.77 oz), double silicone coated, Nylon 6.6, 108/70 tensile, 30/21 tear, USD$5.00/m
- BARD 40D HT PU: 63 gsm (1.86 oz), Single PU coated, HT Nylon, 112/83 tensile, 23/19 tear, USD$3.50/m
- BARD 70D 6.6 SIL: 71 gsm (2.09 oz), Single PU coated, Nylon 6.6, 83/70 tensile, 16/18 tear, USD$3.50/m
