Cape May, New Jersey 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Cape May, New Jersey 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Cape May, New Jersey 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 188.00
16 x 20 in
Baltic birch, hand-stained water
Up to nine laser-cut birch layers
Carved bathymetric relief, laser-etched labels
Soundings: NOAA nautical survey data
How the Water Becomes Wood

A chart is a stack of flat sheets until the water's real soundings tell it what shape to take.

  1. SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
  2. CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
  3. StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
  4. StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
  5. EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
  6. FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.

Cape May in laser-cut Baltic birch, 16 by 20 inches: America's oldest seaside resort carved one depth contour per layer, from the harbor to the point where bay meets ocean.

Cape May has been hosting summer since the 1760s, and the whole town is now a National Historic Landmark, its Victorian gingerbread blocks running down to the beach as they have for a century and a half. The point is the working wonder: Delaware Bay and the Atlantic trade water off the lighthouse, the concrete ship Atlantus rests in the surf where it ran aground in 1926, and each fall one of the continent's great bird migrations funnels over the hawk-watch platform, the peninsula acting as nature's own boardwalk ramp south. On the chart, the rips and shoals off the point earn their engraved reputation.

Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet, stacked by hand, engraved, and set behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame.

Victorian porches, lighthouse beams, and a concrete shipwreck: no other beach town charts quite like this.

The engraving spans the harbor and Cape May proper, the point and its light, and the bay shore toward the ferry. Companions: the South Shore and Delaware Bay.

  • 16 × 20 in
  • Solid Baltic birch frame
  • Acrylic glass front, ready to hang
  • Free next-business-day shipping on orders placed by 2 PM EST
  • 14-day returns
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