My wife and I made a life long goal to see all of the national parks. So far we’ve been to 4 our of 63, so we set a goal to see them all over 30 years.
I wanted to make a piece to track our progress, and I had seen a lot of laser cut national park maps at gift shops. I wanted mine to feel more like nature, like you’d maybe see it at a park. This is what I came up with.
I made a few mistakes, like cleaning the wood right ouf the machine, which caused some warping. I’ll be able to avoid that next time.
I made a tree magnet for each park that you can place when you visit. The national park logo is also a magnet that can be removed. I actually used the forum here to remind myself how to do inlayed wood. The woods I used for the logo are wenge, ash, and padauk. The map itself is made of ash and the backing is a live edge walnut slab. I’m going to drill holes into the wood to use stand offs to put it onto the wall.
Great project! You have a lot of fun adventures ahead. One of the best investments we make each year is our “America the Beautiful” national park pass. We’ve been as far east as Acadia in Maine and as far west as Volcanoes in Hawaii.
That turned out beautiful. What a goal, my husband and I have a Missouri map with all the state parks on it. We plan to visit all of them. Amazing how many there are! This is a work of art!
That is absolutely gorgeous! I adore everything about it and honestly wouldn’t change a thing.
For cleaning, if you run into something like that again try washing with hand sanitizer - since it’s so much alcohol it evaporates before the wood bends. I scrub with it and a toothbrush, then do a quick rinse with water, then dry on a towel. I haven’t had flexing issues since I started following @rbtdanforth’s suggestion!