Papercraft Globe - Part 2 - Crafting the Globe

Having a solid base to work around, I moved onto the most important part of my project - the globe itself.

As before, I began by using my Cricut Explore Air 2 to cut and score my paper patterns.

I accidentally included tabs on both the top and bottom at first, but later removed these after realizing my mistake on the first few cuts. Each vector pattern had to be color coded to distinguish cutting and scoring lines in the Cricut software. 

Once the paper was cut and scored, it was very easy to simply fold along the score lines and glue it together. I spent most of my time at this stage being as careful as possible to keep all of the glue hidden so that I wouldn't have shiny lines everywhere.

The bottom half of the globe was made in the same method, but I kept the very bottom pieces unglued. This was because of the small segment of pipe I knew would go there to allow the globe to spin around the central pipe. When I had enough of it made, I began to glue the small paper triangles to the pipe and used tape to reinforce it.

One third of the way into the globe, I ran into a major roadblock. Cricut's online software wouldn't load my custom images, and later the whole website stopped loading. As a sufferer of chronic pain, it is immensely difficult to do this kind of cutting by hand. I decided to take a break and work on other parts of the project. I caught up with my blogging, finished the lights, and worked on unfolding the countries. 

A couple hours later, Cricut's design space still wasn't working. I tried everything - clearing cookies, clearing cache, reinstalling the Cricut driver, nothing worked. This is why I really, really hate browser based software like this - I would much rather have something I can download to my computer and not have to rely on an internet connection or their servers.

I briefly considered using the laser cutter, but decided to call it a night and hoped that Cricut figured it out overnight. The scoring tool is invaluable on a project like this, and I was hoping I would still be able to finish the project with it.

The following day, Cricut was back. I jumped right into cutting out my patterns again just to make sure I'd get them done in case it went down again. 

First, the cricut scores all the fold lines

Once the score lines are down, it cuts around the shapes to make each piece!

Now that I had the pieces for the globe, I wanted to get the countries cut out while the Cricut service was up. Originally I wanted to make the countries a plain metallic color, but after looking at my (honestly absurd) paper stash, I began to consider other options. Among my favorite ideas were floral patterned paper, gold and black patterned paper, metal look contact paper, leather look contact paper, and wood look contact paper. I wanted the globe to look good with the lights both on and off, so originally I was wary of darker colors - but then I realized I could always outline them and make them pop, while keeping a dark theme to my globe.

The realm of patterned paper also gave me ideas for how to spice up the base without making it too complex. I decided to make my countries out of the gold metal contact paper and use some patterned black paper on my base to make it pretty. I would also use the silver paper inside the globe to make the lights brighter. 

I again used the cricut to cut all of these parts, while slowly working on gluing everything together. I began to question how I possibly had so much work left to do after how many hours I had already put in, but I was happy with how things were coming along. 

I assembled everything in thirds of hemispheres,

or sixths of the whole globe. The globe itself has 18 latitude lines and 18 longitude lines, so I was working in sections of 6 triangles at once. I did what I could, then assembled them into top and bottom hemispheres, leaving an open seam on both. I used the seams and my 3d model to figure out where all the countries went. 

Earlier in the project, I managed to get some lights together. This was a frustrating process, as I forgot not once but TWICE to put the pieces over the pipe before connecting everything. Finally I decided to just put the lights on detachable clips so that I could take them apart as much as needed without worrying about it. I also promised myself I wouldn't solder for this project, because I'm not very good at it and it takes me a long time. Instead, I used insulated crimp tubes to connect my wires - totally overkill, but much easier than dealing with soldering. I also only had a 8xAA battery pack, which is also totally overkill, but it works. 

As I wrestled with the sphere to close it up, I started having to reinforce the seams with tape. There were just too many forces pulling at them, and I couldn't get them to stay together long enough for the glue to dry. I hope this tape ends up not doing anything because the glue set, but in places I upgraded to duct tape just to be extra sure the connections will last. 

I didn't get any pictures of the final process because I already felt like I was short 3 hands. Keeping the sphere together and applying the countries was a horrendously difficult task. Connecting the last few seams took me longer than the entire first half of the globe. However, in the end, I came out with something vaguely globe-like. 

 There are still bits of tape here and there reinforcing some seams that still aren't dry, but otherwise I was finally able to get this damn thing in one piece. I'm probably still going to be gluing down pieces of the map that are peeling up for the next few weeks, because it just really doesn't like to lay flat against the globe. I also never got around to decorating the base, but that's something I can always add later. 

The lights inside work too, but I decided I would poke the holes later. I discovered too late that my awl was bent and dull, and I'd rather have the time to sit down and sharpen it and calmly go about punching holes. 

When I get around to punching the rest of the holes, I'll do a mini photoshoot and make a new post of the finished product. For now, I'm going to go sleep, because I just can't look at this thing any longer tonight.