Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall
Puget Sound, Washington 3D layered wood map in laser-cut Baltic birch, shown framed against a light wall

Puget Sound, Washington 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical Chart

$ 368.00
Size
Frame
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.

Puget Sound in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: the glacier-carved inland sea rendered in full relief, every depth contour its own laser-cut layer.

The Sound is a drowned landscape, gouged by the Vashon ice sheet and flooded when it retreated, which is why the water plunges so deep so close to shore and why Hood Canal branches west as a true natural fjord. The south sound swings tides of a dozen feet and more, uncovering the mudflats that grow the oysters and hide the geoducks, while the Tacoma Narrows squeezes the whole exchange through one turbulent gate under the bridges. On the chart, the glacier's work is legible: deep engraved troughs running north-south, sills and shallows crossing them, the fjord's arm reaching into the Olympics' shadow.

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.

Mudflat clammers, Narrows sailors, and everyone who plans by the tide book: this is the machine you live on, in birch.

The engraving spans Seattle to Olympia, the Narrows, Hood Canal, and Vashon's channels. Companions: the Seattle chart, the wider Salish Sea, and the touchable Puget Sound UV map.

  • 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
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