Global reach at Ham House - # 10

There is one terrestrial and one celestial globe in the library. Both have paper-thin tooled leather covers and date from about 1740. You can see in the lower picture that the covers need repair and the whole set is in need of loving attention. Working from scratch (see the lower picture), Tim and I must make two half-globes to act as protective lids and as form supports for the inner linings that will be made from layers of special, thin foam plastic, acid-free tissue paper and silk, all hand sewn. These will lie under the leather cover. After careful measuring we made up each half-globe from nine sections cut from "Antinox" plastic sheet. In the top picture you can see that we then covered these in special adhesive materials to add the required smoothness and give extra rigidity. More tomorrow!