Aurora Tang's Balloon Closing Method

by mathew on February 5, 2012 - 22:13

This is Aurora Tang's method of sealing up her balloons. I think its the best I've seen. It was developed during a project to document Robert Smithson's Spiral Jetty with the Getty Institute. She has used it extensively for landscape photography.

1) put a cable tie around the balloon neck, holding it in place around the helium nozzle.

2) when balloon is full, pull the balloon neck off nozzle while tightening cable tie.

3) run balloon neck through steel ring and fold back on itself, wrap another cable tie around doubled back balloon neck and tighten.

4) add another cable tie.

These parts are included in the PLOTS balloon kit, only with re-usable cable ties.

PDF version

Comments

Submitted by warren on February 5, 2012 - 23:02.

This is awesome-- i read about Aurora's work a couple years ago, as I was just starting to balloon map. It's wonderful that you've been able to connect with her!

Submitted by eustatic on April 12, 2012 - 11:48.

I've used 1.5" keyrings instead of solid steel, and it held up to a strong wind and a dunking(!) in Lake Pontchartrain. Shannon has not told me what happened to that camera. but the keyring held fine, and i imagine it is lighter than the steel ring.

Thanks for the picture and post, though.

Submitted by mathew on April 18, 2012 - 21:52.

Cool. The ring is definitely overkill, but it does work great. I'd really like to move to a smooth nylon ring if possible, but haven't found one the right shape. I think the key ring would make me nervous, but glad to hear it worked.

Post new comment

Your name: *

E-mail: *

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.

Homepage:

Comment: *

You can use Markdown syntax to format and style the text. Also see Markdown Extra for tables, footnotes, and more.
Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
Link to content with [[some text]], where "some text" is the title of existing content or the title of a new piece of content to create. You can also link text to a different title by using [[link to this title|show this text]]. Link to outside URLs with [[http://www.example.com|some text]], or even [[http://www.example.com]].

More information about formatting options

To prevent automated spam submissions leave this field empty.

CAPTCHA

This question is for testing whether you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.