Balloon

EDIT Dec 3, 2011: Added Balloon v2 file, with some minor changes to improve slicing with skeinforge. I had the best results when I turned infill off completely. I recommend you review the layers with strings before printing, to make sure the extruder doesn't start/stop in mid-air.

This thing is based on the experiment with strings that I did with Thing8. It is inspired by tc_fea's excellent Fractal Tree 2 ( http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4340 ). I had shown the printed model of his tree to someone and they asked if it was a balloon. So I thought I'd see what kind of balloon I could make. I am very happy with the end result!

This is a very challenging print. The two times that I've printed the balloon part, a few of the strings failed to make it across the gap. It might take a lot of experimenting to get a perfect print, but it still looks good with a few broken strings.

UPDATE: It turns out it was an issue with the way skeinforge was slicing the STL. I've included a