Fold a gore in half lengthwise and lay it upon your table or the floor, and upon this place a second about half an inch within the margin of the first (Fig. 4). With a stiff brush—sable is the best—paste the protruding edge of the lower gore, turn it over the edge of the upper and smooth it down with a duster. If you have a warm flat-iron by your side, and laying a piece of flannel or cloth over the join, you run the iron carefully along, the paste will dry at once and all fear of puckering or displacement will be obviated. Fold the upper gore lengthwise as you did the lower, and proceed in the same way with the remainder of the gores until the whole have been pasted (Fig. 5). If your balloon is a very big one it will be advisable to lay a string inside each seam as you paste it, leaving the ends long enough to tie round the hoop which is to go at the bottom or neck of your balloon.
A piece of bonnet wire or split cane 5 feet long, bent to a circle, will form this hoop, and this must now be pasted at the bottom, and the neck may be strengthened by pasting inside a strip of stouter paper, such as foolscap or cartridge, snicked with the scissors so that it may take the right shape readily.
Now a circular piece of stronger paper, “curl” paper for instance, about 9 inches or a foot across, should be pasted over the top to cover the hole where the points of the gores approach each other, and to this should be pasted a piece of yet stronger paper, writing paper for instance, to form the loop by which the balloon is to be supported during the process of inflation. The handle of a saucepan-lid should be the model to be followed.
This is the method to be adopted if you want to produce a balloon of a shape which will bear criticism, but if you are not particular in this respect, a rough and ready gore may be made by a much simpler process. You have only to take four sheets of tissue paper and paste them together by the narrow edges. Then trim off the two outside sheets as shown in Fig. 6, and from the pieces so trimmed off, add a small piece at the top A, and there is your pattern gore in a little less than no time. You can then paste several together as already directed, arranging the number as you wish your balloon to be pudgy and safe, or lanky and dangerous.
The next thing is to provide the means of ascension.
Figs. 3., 4., 5., 6., 7., 8., and 9.
