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Wait - A slide show should start.

In a cafeteria at Sydney Uni, the 28 lengths of delicate plastic sheeting were carefully stacked on a large strip of paper. 

Then, a cutting machine cut all at once.

After the first straight line cuts, the panels were given the final curved cuts for the crown area.

Not much thicker than sweet paper, the Mylar is incredibly hard to tear - except from any exposed edges, where it displays a frightening weakness.

To protect against Ultra Violet damage, it had a vapourised aluminium coating of approx. 2000 Angstroms  

Finally, the gores were taped together, on both sides, using 2inch fiberglass re-enforced tape. These tapes had a breaking strain of 640lbs

The twenty eight tapes were looped at the balloon mouth around short aluminium tubes. Threaded through these were 28 thin cables leading down to a load ring.
 
After the construction was finished in 1963 , Archimedes had it's first test inflation on the grounds of John's College, University of Sydney.
It was an unmanned flight.