North Carolina Coast 3D Wood Map | Laser-Cut Birch Nautical 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.
The North Carolina Coast in stacked Baltic birch, 24.5 by 31 inches: three hundred miles of banks, sounds, and capes carved one depth contour per layer, the most dramatic coastal geography on the Eastern Seaboard.
North Carolina's coast is built around its three capes, Hatteras, Lookout, and Fear, each pushing shoals far out into the Atlantic where cold and warm currents collide. Behind the barrier chain spread the great sounds, Pamlico and Albemarle among the largest in the country, an inland sea of their own with ferries for highways. The Crystal Coast bends west below Lookout, and the Cape Fear River carries the state's port traffic up to Wilmington. On the chart, the capes' shoal fingers reach through the birch toward deep water while the sounds lie broad and pale behind the banks.
Each contour is a separate laser-cut sheet, stacked by hand and engraved, behind acrylic glass in a solid Baltic birch frame in Light or White.
Sound side or sea side is the oldest question on this coast. The chart honors both answers.
The engraving spans Currituck to Calabash: the Outer Banks, Ocracoke and the Core Banks, Beaufort and Morehead, Wrightsville, and the Cape Fear. Zoom in with the Outer Banks chart.
- 24.5 × 31 in
- Solid Baltic birch frame in Light or White
- 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