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Thursday, March 29, 2012

New Estes Parachute Shroud Lines

I was checking the shroud line attachment knots on two of the new Estes 12" parachutes.
On one parachute, two of the six loops were a little big.
I was going to re-tie the knots so all six were more consistent in size.

While using my tweezers to gently take the knot apart, the line broke!
Checking the other knots I noticed two were tied with "granny" knots and not square knots. Square knots don't slip when pulled, granny knots can slip and come untied.

I decided to re-tie new shroud lines on the two parachutes.

Out of curiosity, I tried to break one of the shroud lines that was removed from the parachute.

It broke very easily, almost too easily. The thinnest sewing thread you could find would be stronger than the shroud lines attached to the pre-made Estes parachute!
While I really like the retro printing on the new, cheaper Estes parachutes, I replaced all the shroud lines.

I'm not saying all the new parachutes have this shroud line material. There is no way to know, I may have gotten a bad lot. Both parachutes I purchased had the weak lines.

1 comment:

  1. awesome I put-off buying this for months, despite positive reviews.

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