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 minimum 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 for Hot Air Balloons
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)
History of BARD Custom Specification Fabrics
We have tested close to 50 different types of fabrics, from 12 different fabric mills around the world. We have tried it all, fancy weaves such as diamond weaves and diamond-square weaves, dozens of different types of yarns and yarn sizes, and it has taken us more than 10 years to develop a modern fabric to our exacting specifications.
In our own projects in the past, we have custom developed, produced and used:
- 70D taffeta polyester / silicone – developed by us in Korea – and now used as the main fabric by a balloon factory in Russia.
- 40D/30D nylon 6.0 diamond weave / silicone – extremelly strong, but slightly heavier than soarcoat at 1.5oz/yd2
- 30D nylon 6.6 double square weave / silicone – very strong and almost perfect (1st gen Floatcoat)
Most of these fabrics have been used in our own special shape projects, and some in other client’s balloons. This fabric has never been made widely available to the general public, until now.
Introducing “Floatcoat” (our 2nd Gen Bard Balloons Fabric)
We have named our second generation fabric: “Floatcoat“:
We have worked with our preferred offshore fabric supplier to change the coating and also increase the strength vs. our 1st gen fabric.
This farbic use 30D High Tenacity Nylon yard woven in a double ripstop weave, with double silicone coating, and has a soft hand feel similar to soarcoat.
This fabric with our custom specification coating is even stronger – with 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)
* Note that different colored dyes may affect the resulting strength of production fabric.
The price on this amazing fabric is currently USD$4.50 / meter.
This is our prefered fabric for making lightweight balloons!
Advantages:
- First quality fabric at 68% less cost than first quality soarcoat!
- Stronger tensile strength, and almost triple the minimum tear strength of soarcoat
- Available in any Pantone color, range of colors are not limited
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 (air freight, additional cost)
Other BARD fabrics:
We also have some slightly heavier ripstop nylon fabric available to custom order – this is not as heavy as regular 70D weight fabric, but is much, much stronger than most commercial balloon fabric, at a slightly lower weight.
- Floatcoat 40D: 60 gsm (1.77 oz), double silicone coated, Nylon 6.6, 108/70 lbs tensile, 30/21 lbs tear, USD$5.00/m