Cutting out circular spill hole in center of Quest parachute

[brockrwood]

Yes, I could just cut out the red circle in the middle of the parachute. I wanted the spill hole a little smaller.

I have a handy Olfa circle cutter. But where is the center of the red circle printed onto the parachute?

Geometry to the rescue.

One way to find the center of a circle is to draw two chords on the circle. Then find the middle pioint of each chord. Then draw a perpendicular bisector of on each chord.

Center is where the two perpendicukar bisectors cross.

 

[Hobie1dog]

Genius

 

[brockrwood]

Genius

I rock the 8th grade math. Beyond that, it is magic to me.

 

[brockrwood]

For the record, I had to draw lines on my nice, unused Quest 14 inch parachute. I guess I could have drawn them on the underside. Doh!

 

[SolarYellow]

I'd have just measured across the diameter and marked the center, then measured another diameter approximately perpendicular to it and marked the center of that. Where the two marks cross should be center. And they'll be short enough that they get cut out.

 

[BABAR]

I use the “good enough for government work” approach (since I was prior Air Force technically I worked for the govt and can say that)

Fold in half using flat sides for 6or 8 sided chute.

Fold in half again

And again

Once more if you can.

Measure RADIUS of desired curvature distance from pointy tip.

Cut across, for extra points you can try to estimate the curvature, but it’s plastic so not critical.

For grins, using paper squares and three folds, you can make snowflakes with your kids or grandkids.

All my home made plastic chutes have eight sides, cut with this technique. Figure two extra shroud lines can’t hurt.