Laser Cut Layered US National Parks Map

Layered US National Parks Map — 61 Parks, Laser-Cut Basswood & Walnut

A layered wooden map of the United States with all 61 mainland/AK/HI National Parks called out — each one a little basswood tree paired with its own engraved walnut nameplate. Finished piece is 24 × 18 in (609.6 × 457.2 mm), built on a painting panel. We use it as a trip tracker: cut all 61 trees, but we only stick a tree down once we've actually been to that park. The map fills in as you go. Designed to be made on the H2 series printers with the 10W laser. The country is divided up into 4 pieces and cut along state lines so its harder to notice the separate pieces.

What's in the download

SVGs for each section of the map, designed to fit in a 300x300mm cut area.

137 pieces on 6 sheets, nested for 300 × 300 mm stock.

Two of the engrave objects are assembly jigs rather than artwork: a + marking where each tree goes, and corner ticks for each nameplate. They end up hidden under a glued-down part — I have them hidden in the files currently, you can un-hide them if you'd like to use them as a guide.

The park names are done as raster fill plus a vector outline of the same letterforms. Fill alone comes out soft-edged at this size; the outline pass sharpens the edge and makes the lettering actually readable on dark walnut.

Materials

• 3 mm Bambu Lab basswood plywood — landmass and trees. 5 sheets, see the materials section.

• 3 mm Bambu Lab walnut plywood — nameplates and title plate. 1 sheet, see the materials section.

• Wood painting panel, 18 × 24 in — the backer. A framed panel gives you a solid wood back to attach the map to, and a nice looking frame.

• Acrylic paint — background color for the panel face, and color for the trees.

  • Paint brushes

• Wood stain — for the painting panel's frame.

  • Lint-free cloth — for applying stain

• 3M Command strips — mounting the map to the panel, and labels to the map, you could use glue instead.

• Wood glue — for attaching some of the smaller items

Tip: Cut all your basswood from the same box

This is the one thing I'd most want to know before starting. Basswood tone varies noticeably between boxes — pale straw to a pinkish tan — and because the map is split into panels that butt against each other, a mismatched sheet shows up as a visible color break straight down the middle of the country. Within a box it's consistent. Lay out all five basswood sheets before you cut and make sure they look like they came from the same tree.

Personalization

The title plate reads "National Parks" / “Isabel & Trevor's Adventures”. Swap the subtitle line for yourown before cutting, there is editable text within the group for the title plaque.

Assembly Steps

Step 1: Prepare and cut the model

• The entire model is ready to cut except for the nameplate - modify the nameplates subtitle to have your name or whatever else you'd like.

• Cut all 5 basswood sheets and 1 walnut sheet.

Step 2: Stain the paint panels frame

• Use painters tape to mask off the back panel from the frame, this way you don't get stain onto the back panel.

• Stain the frame of the paint panel using a lint free cloth.

• Allow at least 4 hours to dry, ideally 24.

Step 3: Paint the panels background and trees

• Remove the masking tape from the back of the paint panel.

• Mask off the inside of the frame, so that you don't get paint on the stained part of the frame.

• Paint the back panel of the frame your desired color, use multiple coats, allowing each to dry prior to adding the next.

• If you decide to paint the trees, do it now.

Step 4: Attach the map to the panel

We decided to use mostly command strips to attach the map to the panel and labels to the map. This was mainly to reduce mess and make it possible to change the labels in the future if a new park is added. All of these directions below use command strips, but you could also use glue. Once the paint from the previous step has fully dried:

• Tape the 5 mainland panels together face-up on a flat surface with the seams butted, then flip the taped-up assembly and stick command strips to the back, flip it back over and mount it as a single unit.

• Attach command strips to the back of Alaska and Hawaii and put them in the open space below California. Some part of Alaska and Hawaii were really small and we ended up gluing them rather then using command strips.

Step 5: Attach the labels and trees to the map

• Attach the nameplates to the proper locations on the map using cut up command strips. If you engraved the tick marks you can use these to align the nameplates, otherwise just look at the reference images and get it close.

  • Some of the name plates hang off of the land and onto the background, for some of these we laser cut another smaller nameplate and glued them to the main nameplate, then used a command strip to attach the stand-off to the background.

  • Each nameplate's end is notched to its tree's silhouette, so the tree slides in to meet its plate. Cut up some command strips and attach the trees to the map inside of the nameplates notch.

  • Attach the title plate to the background using command strips.

Credits

State boundaries from the us-atlas states-10m dataset, derived from US Census cartographic boundary files (US Government work, public domain). Park coordinates from Wikidata (CC0).