Umbrella canopy for parachutes?

I wonder if anyone out there has used the nylon canopy from a discarded umbrella for a parachute. I have a colorful collection of umbrella canopies, mostly non Ripstop nylon. Are they too weak or the wrong shape to use for parachutes. I saw a gorgeous 7 foot diameter discarded beach umbrella today which prompted me to ask these questions.

I do not know about a 7 footer, but I have used 3 footers. 7 foot might shread.

Other then the 9 ft chute I made for my L3 rocket, all of my chutes above 24" are re-purposed umbrellas.
I have used the smaller umbrellas, about 38" - 42" and golf umbrellas, about 53", for main chutes on my DD rockets for year now. I stitched about 2" of shroud line to each seam and have never had a problem. The smaller ones I use on my 5 lb DD L1 scratch build and the 53" golf umbrellas have provided the main chute for my 10 lb L2 DD rocket for 6 year now. They have a few small holes melted in them from ejection charges, but it doesn't affect how the chutes work, so I just ignore the holes.

I bought a 3,000 ft spool of 150 lb dacron line 6 or 7 years ago that I use for shroud lines. I build a number of chutes that used a lot of the line but I still have at least half of it left.

The umbrellas work great and hold up fine. I've never had a failure in 7 years.

Thanks for the info. I'll have to get some Nylon or Dacron line and try one of these out.

I did a 6' umbrella canopy for my scale model at NARAM last year, a 1.47kg, 4-inch Astrobee 1500. I was lazy and just looped some 200 pound Kevlar around the little doo-dads that hold the canopy to the frame of the umbrella.

That looks good to me. I'm not sure what you mean by "looped some 200 pound Kevlar around the little doo-dads that hold the canopy to the frame of the umbrella" but it certainly seem to work well. I just zig zag stitch shroud lines to the gore seams.

Saw a nice 5' black and white panel Nylon umbrella at Home Depot today. "Special Buy" $9.97. Tempted........

DavieRockets said:

Saw a nice 5' black and white panel Nylon umbrella at Home Depot today. "Special Buy" $9.97. Tempted........

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I put the word out at work that I would collect any broken umbrellas to use a parachutes. I've got two chutes made from golf umbrellas, and three from smaller umbrellas. I've also have 6 sets of umbrella skins waiting to be made into chutes. I'm starting to get very picky about which ones I will use now. My favorite is a 32" bright yellow one.

OK, Chuck,

This week I found 3 more trashed umbrellas and stripped off the canopies. A 58" Ikea, 51" green and 40" red. I'm going to have to learn how to sew using my late wife's sewing machine. What kind of thread do you recommend? All I see here is about 100 colors of cotton thread.

Learning to use the sewing machine isn't too hard as long as you have the instruction manual and access to youtube.

I usually use a heavy duty thread, a 30 or 40. Here's a good sizing chart LINK I used upholstery thread to sew my chute for my L3 rocket.