How desk globes are made

A flat map has to be printed warped and then stretched back into shape, or it won't fit on a ball.

stations: 6
things upstream: 53
raw sources: 15
steps from the ground: 8

The short version

Most desk globes are vacuum-formed. A warped map is printed on flat PVC or vinyl, heated and sucked into a half-sphere, then trimmed and given a rigid shell, either bonded on or injection-molded behind it. Northern and southern halves are made separately and glued or snapped together. Some makers press cardboard hemispheres instead, and a few apply paper strips by hand.

Print the warped map

Each hemisphere's map is printed in distorted form on a flat, pliable PVC or vinyl sheet. Stretching over a dome will pull it back into shape, though the sheet can also stretch and shrink along its original extrusion direction.

Goes in
PVC Ink
Vacuum-form the dome

The sheet is heated in a vacuum former and drawn into a concave mold. The top of the dome tends to thin. One Chinese patent lays a small oval heat shield over the center so the sheet stays more even.
Trim the hemisphere

Excess sheet is cut away. A second patent leaves a narrow rim around the dome, which the injection mold will grip.
Back it with a shell

In one patented route the map film goes into an injection mold and ABS plastic shoots in behind it, faster than the hot film can shrink or wrinkle. Lit globes use a bonded inner shell of clear or white acrylic, so a lamp inside can shine through.

Goes in
ABS plastic Acrylic
Join the hemispheres

Glue or snap fittings close the northern and southern halves into a sphere. On pressed-board globes, equator tape hides the seam.

Goes in
Adhesive
Mount on its stand

The sphere is tilted on an axis and fitted to its base. Globes lean 23.5 degrees to match Earth's axis.

Goes in
Plastic

End of the lineDesk globe

Worth repeating

Martin Behaim's Erdapfel of 1492 is the oldest terrestrial globe still in existence.
A one-meter circumference, common on many globes, puts the model at a scale of 1:40 million.
Pressed-cardboard globes can show raised mountain ranges, but can have trouble lining up the text.