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sheeks

Why didn’t the non-slippery ZP ever catch on?

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Someone at my dropzone has an old hornet and it’s the easiest thing to pack in the world, and suprisingly enough after much research it’s actually made out of ZP and was known for how easy to pack it was, even knew.

 

Were there any specific disadvantages to this type of ZP coating compared to the more popular kind today?

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William Reed in the UK makes a PN4 fabric, and it's very un-slippery. However, the feel of it seems to vary depending on the batch, the last lot was almost like sail material and packed really big. Soarcoat is probably just the most consistent quality, and that's why most manufacturers use it.

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Back during the 1990s, various fabric mills tried to duplicate Parachutes de France's zero porosity fabric ... with varying degrees of success. Gelvenor Fabric Mills in South Africa introduced their ZP fabric that was less slippery than competitors. Gelvenor depended more on calenderizing than silicon coating. Calenderizinf involves pressing the fabric between two heated rollers to partially melt threads and encourage threads to better fill in gaps between them, reducing porosity. This form of calenderizing created a less-slippery fabric that was easier to pack. It also needed less silicone to reduce porosity to zero.

Gelvenor's disadvantage was wide variations in fabric bulk. Early Triathlons (sewn by Parachute Industries of South Africa) varied as much as 30 percent in volume. This drove container manufacturers to drink!

Hah!

Hah!

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My understanding, I think someone at Aerodyne told me this, was that part of the reason production ceased on the gelvenor fabric was that it manufacturing was more environmentally unfriendly. That could be bullshit?

Maybe 10 year back Aerodyne found some left over rolls of the fabric at the South Africa factory. At the time I was in contact with people involved with the company and they called me up. I had only mentioned the fabric about 1000x because I had an old hornet in addition to being an Aerodyne fanboy.

They made me a custom Mamba 104 out of the fabric, one of a kind I guess. 

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(edited)

This was an interesting post that I dug up, from back in 2006. Beezy Shaw shared some information that he was told, also mentioned that it may have been pollution.

 

Further scrolling in that thread led me to find a post that I made, so maybe I heard it there from Beezy?

 

 

Edited by DougH

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