Hey everyone! Hope you're all having a great week and welcome back to Rustic DIY Projects! This week's project is something I stumbled across online a while back and have been wanting to do but just haven't had a chance until recently. This time I made a decorative wall mounted world map with a rosewood stained wooden backboard. The landmasses are all constructed of 1-3/8 inch nails and twine. This was one of my more cost friendly project, however there was definitely a trade-off in the "time" department as hammering in all the nails, wrapping all the twine, and getting the large template printed out definitely consumed more time than I would like. But regardless it's all done and this was the end result. Hope you all enjoy it!
And here's the supplies and tools I used.
Supplies/Tools Needed
Table/Circular Saw
Orbital Sander
T-Clamps x 2
Hammer
Tape Measure
Pencil
Straightedge Ruler
Wood Glue
Rag
String/Twine
Rosewood Stain
1-3/8" nails
1" x 6" x 6' boards of wood x 2
World Map Print 24" x 36"
READ ALL DIRECTIONS BEFORE STARTING EACH STEP
Step One
Here I got my wood all laid out. I bought these 6' boards at Home Depot for about $3 each. I marked the half way point and drew a line across it with my straight edge and a pencil then proceeded to cut them in half.
After cutting everything in half I gave them all a quick sand down to smooth them out using 180 grit sandpaper and an orbital sander. I made sure to round off the sharp edges as well, you COULD use a router with a round-over bit to accomplish this but I find it simpler and faster to just use an orbital sander. It's not as deliberate as the round-over bit would be but it's soft, round, and it gets the job done.
Alright, now that I have everything all sanded down it's time to add the stain. I'm going with Rosewood because I like the velvety-purple color it comes out as. Plus it looks good in contrast to the twine and nails I'll be using in the future steps. You can buy a can of this at any Woodcraft for about $18.
Usually it's best to do two or more coats however because I was in a bit of a time crunch I decided one looked fine enough to me.
Once the stain had finished drying I applied wood glue to the ends of all my boards, clamped them up using my T-Clamps, and let them cure over night.
Note: If you try this out yourself just make sure you wipe up all the excess glue that squeezes out, otherwise it'll look like crap. Also make sure not to over tighten your clamps otherwise your boards will all bow out and it'll be super crooked.
Step Five
While my glued up boards cured I decided to take a quick field trip over to my local Office Depot to get a world map image I saved to my USB thumb drive printed out! Unfortunately some very rude man was screaming at the clerk over something she had absolutely no control over so it took slightly longer than I'd hoped for. To make matters worse by the time I did get to the register the clerk informed me that they were out of paper in the size I needed and I would have to check another location. So I went to another store where I was told it couldn't be done due to copyright laws. However the clerk was kind enough to let me use his computer to search for an image that wasn't copyrighted and below is the result!
Note: Don't be an inconsiderate jerk to your cashiers and hold the whole line up for 35 minutes because you can't figure out what size picture you want. It's not their job to read your mind and you have no idea what kind of crap they've had to put up with all day.
Note 2: Make sure to get a big enough image so that you will be able to show all the small features easier (ie. peninsulas, deltas, lakes, and other subtle landmarks). Mine was a decent size but due to the thickness of the string and the insufficient size of the print my project didn't come out exactly as I had hoped for unfortunately.
Step Six
The next day once the glue had finished curing I cut off the excess paper I didn't need and laid the template down where I wanted it on my backboard. Once I had it positioned just perfectly I started hammering nails into the key points along the outlines of each of the continents and a few of the larger islands. It was at this time I realized that my printed image wasn't large enough to accomplish the detailed quality I had hoped for. With work soon approaching and traumatizing memories of Office Depot still fresh in my mind from the other night I decided to bite the bullet and make due with what I had.
With all my nails hammered in it was time to begin the tedious and arduous task of making my twine continents. I first did the outlines starting with South America, North America, Africa, Australia, Asia, Europe (this was particularly difficult and didn't come out as desired due to the reason listed in Step Six), and then finally the islands. After I had everything outlined I removed the paper template and began filling in the blank space by running the twine across from nail-to-nail. There was no real technique I used for this, I simply did it until I could see very little of the backboard remaining.
Note: While doing this I noticed one trick kind of helped make the process easier. When wrapping around the nails it's best to push the twine as far down as possible towards the base (not the head) to allow for more room to wrap the nails.
A few hours of twine twisting and a lot of nails later I finally finished my world map. Didn't come out nearly bad as I thought it would but still not as elaborate as I had hoped for. Now all that's left is a trip to Walmart after work to install a couple mounting brackets and then it's all done!
Mounted up and looking good!
Hope you enjoyed my "How To" on how to make this Twine Art World Map wall decoration! Feel free to share this link with any of your other friends you think may be interested! Also don't forget to like, share, and follow me on social media! It helps! And don't be afraid to share what you made either! I like to see what kind of cool stuff other people come up with! And if you have any questions, concerns, or remarks you're more than welcome to leave a comment in the comment tab or my email if you want to do so more personally!
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Plenty more cool stuff to come so stay tuned!
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