San Francisco, California 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.
San Francisco Bay in laser-cut Baltic birch: one of the world's great natural harbors carved layer by layer, from the Golden Gate's deep throat to the shallow southern reaches.
The bay's secret is how shallow it mostly is, much of it under fifteen feet, which makes its deep places dramatic: the engraved channel plunging through the Gate, the trench past Alcatraz, the shipping lanes threading between. Angel Island rises mid-bay, Alcatraz holds its rock, and the cities ring the whole basin from the Embarcadero around to Sausalito's houseboats. Two great river systems arrive through the Delta at the bay's back door, fresh water meeting salt in the largest estuary on the West Coast. The birch holds all of it in true proportion.
Contours are laser-cut sheet by sheet, stacked by hand, engraved, and finished behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Dark or Light.
Ferry riders, bay sailors dodging the ebb, and everyone with a bridge in their window: this is the water that explains the place.
The engraving spans the Gate and both bridges, Alcatraz and Angel Island, the city front, Richardson Bay, and the reaches south. Companions: the Golden Gate close-up and the California Coast.
- 16 × 20 in or 24.5 × 31 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
Live from the water