II.—FIRE-BALLOONS AND THEIR CONSTRUCTION.
They may be constructed of any size; but an overgrown fire-balloon, according to my experience, is seldom satisfactory, and never returns value for the money expended in making it. As a boy I was a great fire-balloon maker. I have made them of various sizes; at length, however, coming to the conclusion that three sheets of tissue-paper, pasted end to end, then cut into shape and joined, make a balloon quite large enough to manage, and also large enough for every ornamental purpose.
‘Cut into shape,’ did I not say the paper was to be? Well, what sort of a shape? Perhaps I need not tell you that a perfectly globular bag will hold more than any other shaped bag you could make out of a given quantity of paper. A peeled orange or lemon will give the very best idea of the general shape of the gussets of a balloon. Speaking generally, the narrower you cut the gussets of your balloon the neater will be your turn out; but of course, if narrow gussets be employed, more of them will be needed than if you employed wide gussets. Neatness of manufacture is of no account when brought to bear on a toy firework that, after a few moments of ascent, reveals itself to lookers-on merely as a patch of moving light.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 2.
After many trials, I came to the conclusion that when using tissue-paper, three sheets pasted narrow edge to narrow edge, eight gussets were enough. Occasionally, however, I would slightly elongate each gusset by attaching one of the little corners a or b, and fixing it at c. Of course the pieces a and b have to be cut away in any case, else the necessary gussets could not be made.
With regard to the exact shape of a finished balloon, always remember that the more nearly globular it is the more gas or air will it hold, and the more stable will be its flight. Assuming you to have pasted end to end three sheets of tissue-paper, with the little bit (c) added to the top part over and above, I recommend you to divide, mentally at least, the three sheets and bit added, rectangle, into four parts. Of these the two middle parts need not be cut or trimmed at all. All the trimming needful can be done on the two end parts. Another thing—do not give any care to bringing the crown, or summit, of the balloon to a point. You will have to paste on what we call a round summit, or crown, at any rate, under which circumstance your bringing all the gussets to one terminal point is of no consequence. In cutting out the gussets, this is best done on the double, which will ensure symmetry.