Lake Travis, Texas 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Depth Chart
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.
- SurveyReal bathymetric sounding data sets every contour line before a single cut is made.
- CutEach depth band is laser-cut from its own sheet of Baltic birch, up to nine layers deep.
- StainWater layers are stained by hand, reading darker the deeper the water runs.
- StackThe sheets are registered and stacked in sequence, and the bed's true shape rises out of the wood.
- EtchDepths and place names are burned into the grain itself, never printed on it.
- FrameA solid Baltic birch frame and acrylic glass finish the piece, ready to hang.
Lake Travis in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the Hill Country's headline lake carved one depth contour per layer, sixty-plus winding miles of the dammed Colorado.
Travis is the drama queen of the Highland Lakes and everyone loves her for it: built for flood control, the lake rises and falls by whole marina-heights between wet years and dry, its limestone coves clarifying to Caribbean blues in between. Devil's Cove hosts the flotilla parties of legend, Hippie Hollow maintains its clothing-optional tradition as the only such public park in Texas, and the sailboats work the wide bends off the marinas. On the chart, the old river's engraved channel snakes through the birch beneath the coves, the deep line every local depth-finder knows by heart.
Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet, stacked by hand, engraved, and set behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame.
Lake day is a Hill Country institution. Here is the institution's floor plan.
The engraving spans Mansfield Dam to the upper basins, the marinas, and the storied coves between. Fellow Texas waters: Lake Conroe and Lake Georgetown.
- 24.5 × 31 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
Live from the water