Best Material for new netting - recommenadations needed

[etienne]

Hey guys,
because of wear, I am probaby going to make a new netting myself.

What’s the best string/ material to buy?

needs to be thin (windresistance), strong, and knots should be easily tieable.

[GliderPilot (Paul Butler)]

I made my net with this line:

I 3D printed this netting needle:

Netting Needle.stl (2.4 MB)

Here are pictures of the process:

[glydrfreak (Braedin Butler)]

Here’s the link to that same Hercules line, $5 on eBay:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fulk%2Fitm%2F262969810770

So far we haven’t seen any signs of wear and have been using this new net for quite a long time!

[etienne]

Here’s how I recently rebuild the hoop and the netting. One of the carbon fiber arms broke at the tip on a hard landing, so @GliderPilot was so nice to send me his upgraded 3D printed replacement parts.

The steps involved shortening the arms a bit, which resulted in having to cut the aluminum hoop as well (smaller radius = smaller diameter). When doing that, I did not plan well and cut off a piece on the wrong side, of the aluminum part, which resulted in the rivets holding the net being in the way (I could not slide the aluminum hoop on top of the plastic end anymore).

Since the netting was also worn, I decided to remove the old netting and add a fresh, custom made net as well.

What I can say is that the drag is greatly reduced with this much thinner, yet strong net!

thanks to @bratwurst who gave me some tips on how to best attach the netting I finally decided to first make the net in the exact size that was needed, so that I would not have to cut the net to make it fit. I also used some steel wire to not having to squeeze the net’s line with the rivets, but to use steel wire loops:

I also improved how the net keeps the individual aluminum hoop pieces together, when they are not attached to the frame. These elastic strings also help to keep the net in shape when the frame is put together:

I am pretty happy with the result.

[etienne]

Here’s the original net, slightly damaged, probably because the rivets squeezed the net:

You can also see the old hole, which happened to be in the wrong position after I shortenend the aluminum hoop and the new hole I drilled right next to the old one, to accomodate for the new netting.

Notice the difference of thread thickness in the original net versus the new net.

[1066]

I really like the wire loops. Brilliant!