A Beautiful Woodturned Globe Made Out of Triangles

Woodworker and filmmaker Frank Howarth (previously) created a beautiful multi-textured globe using triangular cuts of different woods. Howarth first started this project by laying out the Earth’s surface as a flat map that he then cut into a series of 80 triangles that he glued together.

I have been working on this woodturned globe since early last April. It is now October. The idea behind this woodturned globe was to cut out the patterns of land and ocean as a flat map into a series of 80 triangles. Then those triangles will connect and fold into a sphere.

Sadly, his first try at this complicated project didn’t work out as he planned, but with a bit of time and thought, the second time worked out like a charm. Once the newly cut pieces were assembled, he put the glued piece onto his woodturner without any difficulty whatsoever.

When I went to glue everything up it started out okay, but as the pieces got bigger and bigger, the discrepancies between the triangles also got bigger and bigger. Something was terribly wrong. I put the project down for about 5 months while….I modeled a sphere using the actual thickness of the triangles and actually measured what the sides of the triangles would be in that sphere. This gave a subtle difference in the angles. I cut out an entire second batch of triangles and remade a new sphere and this time it worked. Once I had the sphere built, I could wood turn it on the lathe to get a smooth surface. It turned out beautiful.

Woodturned Globe
Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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