Virginia Beach to Kitty Hawk 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Virginia Beach to Kitty Hawk 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Virginia Beach to Kitty Hawk 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Virginia Beach to Kitty Hawk 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 328.00
24.5 x 31 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.

Virginia Beach to Kitty Hawk in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the coast where two states and two eras of history meet, carved one depth contour per layer.

The chart's corners hold two beginnings. At Cape Henry, the Jamestown colonists made their first landfall in 1607, and the cape's two lighthouses, one Colonial, one Victorian, still stand together over the Chesapeake's mouth, where the Bay Bridge-Tunnel runs its seventeen-mile engineering feat across and under the shipping lanes. At the southern end, the dunes of Kitty Hawk and Kill Devil Hills lifted the Wright brothers into the age of flight in 1903, the steady coastal wind their laboratory. Between them run Sandbridge's cottages, Back Bay's wild marsh, and Currituck's light. On the chart, bay mouth, open coast, and sound country each keep their engraved character.

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

First landing to first flight, one stretch of sand: history's favorite coastline, carved.

The engraving spans the oceanfront and Cape Henry, the Bridge-Tunnel, Sandbridge and Back Bay, and the Currituck Banks. South continues on the Outer Banks chart; the harbor behind on Norfolk.

  • 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
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