Plaster and pencil
A blank world.
Every globe starts as a plaster ball, turned true and rubbed down until a lamp cannot find a flaw. Then we rule the lines of latitude and longitude on it, in pencil, before a single coast is drawn.
Handmade globes and maps Oxford
The world, pasted by hand.
Table globes, antique-style maps and bespoke commissions, made one gore at a time in a small workshop in Jericho. Yours, ours, or one you invented.
Scroll to begin the survey
I The survey
The survey
Pins and triangles
Fix the stations.
Known points go in first, each marked with a pin and joined to its neighbours in a net of triangles. Brass dividers lift every distance from the chart and carry it, point to point, onto the sphere.
By eye, between the pins
Pencil the coasts.
Between the stations the coastlines are drawn freehand, with the graticule as the only referee. Real continents, or an imaginary ocean for a novel: the geometry is the same either way.
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II Engraving
Engraving
Copper, not stone
One plate, twelve gores.
The finished drawing is flattened into twelve pointed gores and cut into a single sheet of copper. Wherever a line is cut, ink will sit. Everywhere else the plate stays bright and blank.
A line at a time
Cut with a burin.
Coasts first, then the lettering, then the hatching that shades the shallows. An engraver pushes the burin away from the body, and a good day is about a hand’s width of plate.
By request
Sea monsters.
The serpents are the engraver’s holiday. Tell us what lives in your ocean, a kraken, a whale, a particular and ill-tempered ship, and it goes in the margin where the sea is widest.
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III Printed and coloured
Printed and coloured
Inked and rolled
Pulled from the plate.
The plate is inked, wiped back until only the cut lines hold colour, and run through the rolling press with a sheet of damp cotton-rag paper. Twelve gores come off in a single pull.
Washed by hand
Region by region.
The sheet is coloured with watercolour, one region at a time, and the same wash never goes down twice. Pale rose here, sage there, a little straw where the desert should be.
Dried and trimmed
Flat, then cut.
It dries under boards for a day so that nothing cockles, then each gore is trimmed to its long pointed shape and numbered on the back. Twelve slivers of world, ready to be laid on a ball.
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IV Pasting
Pasting
Paste, not glue
A flat map becomes round.
Each gore is brushed with wheat-starch paste and left for a minute to relax. Paper that has been damped will stretch exactly as far as it needs to, and not an inch further.
Pole to pole
Laid tip to tip.
Starting at the north pole, every gore is laid down its own meridian and smoothed outward with a bone folder. A coastline has to meet itself across the seam, and across eleven others.
Capped in brass
The last of the world.
The final gore goes on, the poles are covered with brass caps, and the ball rests for a week while it shrinks into place. Then it is ready for the varnish.
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V The finished globe
The finished globe
Shellac
Three coats of light.
The globe is varnished with warm shellac, three coats, each rubbed back with pumice before the next. The map sinks under the surface and the colours deepen. Lamplight starts to move on it.
Hung in brass
Ring and horizon.
It is hung on its axis in a graduated brass meridian ring, tilted at 23.4 degrees, and set into a turned oak stand with a calendar and zodiac ring round the horizon. Every screw is slotted in line.
Signed and numbered
It turns.
A well-hung globe turns with one finger and stops where you leave it. Ours are numbered, signed on the horizon ring, and guaranteed for life. Please do send it back if it ever sticks.
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VI Your turn
Choose a style.
Then give it a spin.
The same world, drawn four ways. Pick an era and the colours, the lettering and the monsters all change. Drag the globe to turn it.
Style
- Era
- 1790s
- Hand
- Washed in rose, sage and straw
- Price
- from £1,450
Terra Aurelia · Hesperia · Nova Caledonia
Mare Tranquillum · Oceanus Occidentalis
Copper-engraved coasts, pale washes laid by hand and a serpent in every ocean worth the name.
Drag the globe to spin it
VII The shop
Globes, maps and a day at the bench.
Globes
- The Jericho 30 cm table globe, oak stand and brass meridian. Georgian or Victorian.£1,450 – £1,650
- The Canal 20 cm desk globe, modern relief colours.£890
- The Lantern 30 cm Night globe, lit from within.£1,950
- The Pocket 7 cm globe in a fish-skin case.£340
Map commissions
- Your parish, estate or street A2 antique-style map, hand-coloured.from £420
- The family estate Cartouche, arms and sea monsters, framed.from £680
- A world for the novel Twelve gores and a flat map of an invented place.from £1,200
- Lead time Eight to twelve weeks, a proof for your approval.
Workshop days
- Paste a pocket globe One day, six places, lunch included.£145
- Introduction to copper engraving Cut and pull your own small plate.£195
- Colouring at the Press Evening, 6 to 9, wine and washes.£48
- Gift vouchers Any amount, posted on parchment.
VIII The small print
Slow work, never rushed.
- Gores in every globe
- 0
- each one numbered on the back
- Hand hours, large globe
- 0hrs
- from plaster ball to signed horizon
- Globes sent out
- 0
- and a handful sent back for a tune-up
- First press
- 0
- in a shed, with a borrowed mangle
IX Visit and commission
Tell us what you would like drawn.
A globe for a study, a map of a farm, a place that never existed. Write a few lines and we will send a proof sketch and a price within the week.
Thank you. We will sharpen a pencil and write back within the week with a sketch and a price. Mind the paste pot by the door.
- The workshop
- Cartwright Yard, Jericho
Oxford OX2 (fictional) - Open
- Tuesday to Saturday, 10 to 5
Workshop days on Sundays - Contact
- 01865 555 0142
hello@cartographers-press.example