10 minute trash/garbage/bin bag hot air balloons

Step 6 Lighting & Inflate

Our next job is to light the balloon and inflate it.  Again, using more than one set of hands one person needs to hold the balloon (preferably at the top).  If you've got two people to hold whilst you light, one can open the bottom of the balloon as the other is holding the top.

Using the matches (or a lighter) light the cotton wool ball.  This'll quickly inflate the balloon and the person holding it will notice it getting lighter and lighter until it'll start hovering.  At this point it'll just float, then gently get momentum and speed up.

If fully released it'll generally make the lower of the jet streams and really will hurtle away.  If released at night you'll see the usually clear flames of the meths as a bright blue/yellow floating away.

The cotton ball works as a wick, slowly releasing the gas from the boiling meths stored inside.  A single cotton ball will keep the balloon afloat for about 25 minutes and strong 'jet streams' will carry it miles.  Very pretty.

Unfortunately on this particular event the bin bag got away.  This was not on purpose and it was because the tether got snagged.  :-(  The resulting video was particularly chaotic and I had to do a fair bit of splicing to remove my quite considerable swearing.

The resulting video show the lighting, the inflating but not the release because I asked my wife to let go.  It dropped rather gracefully to the ground, so I swore (again) and turned off the camera to put it out and start again.  Unfortunately it bounced and took off.  I wasn't quick enough to get the camera back on and so we only have a 'look it's inflating' to "omg it's in the sky!"

Enjoy the below short video.

 

Comments

[Instructable Maker]

Yeah, that source of heat is too strong (I think). It could very easely burn throught the bag. Other that that, it's a great instructable and it looks realy fun. I might try it sometimes.

[tim_n]

It can, but generally it works fine and the cooling from the outside air keeps it cool enough that the bag doesn't melt through. It's a trick getting a big enough bag which is thin enough.

[_macgyver_]

it dident work for me :(

[tim_n]

You may need a thinner wire. It really needs to be very thin!

[atamico]

in my country is not manufactured garbage bags with the heat resistance. That is, the bag of garbage in a state of meltdown. Some other way?

[tim_n]

The flame shouldn't touch the bag, but inflate it. The hot air won't melt it.

If you do it wrong, the bag does catch fire.

[Dr. Brickinstein]

This worked really well!!! I didint put the ring on the bag to make it lighter just the other piece of wire for the fire.

[amando96]

I just cello taped 6 big bin bags together, it's over 6m long, going to try and use the sun as a source of heat.

[Mottr]

nice, i would love to see that scaled 10 times bigger

[vadios]

A very good instructable. The only thing I'd change - the source of heat, I mean the flame is too strong and the baloon can burn.