Golden Gate, California 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Golden Gate, California 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Golden Gate, California 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Golden Gate, California 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Golden Gate, California 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Golden Gate, California 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart

$ 188.00
Size
Frame
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.

The Golden Gate in stacked Baltic birch, 16 by 20 inches: the strait itself at close range, carved one depth contour per layer, the mile-wide gap that all of San Francisco Bay breathes through.

Every tide, the entire bay exchanges water with the Pacific through this single opening, a flow that at full run outmuscles any river on the continent, scouring the channel beneath the bridge to depths of more than 300 feet. The fog rides the same gap, pulled inland on summer afternoons like a scheduled delivery. The bridge has spanned it since 1937, but the water made the place: on the chart, the strait's engraved trench cuts between the Marin Headlands and the city's northern shore, with the potato patch shoals lurking in the top layers outside.

Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.

Sailors time the Gate; tourists photograph it; this chart explains it.

The engraving spans the bridge and its anchorages, Fort Point, the Headlands, and the approaches inside and out. The full harbor continues on the San Francisco Bay chart.

  • 16 × 20 in
  • Solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light
  • 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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