World map pin board

This is a framed corkboard with a world map that I built for my parents who have been travelling a lot. It hangs in my Dad’s study and has lots of pins in it.

It’s pinned half-lap, quartersawn white oak. The “inside” is a sheet of 1/4” ply with 1’x1’ cork tiles glued on it, then the map glued on that with spray adhesive. The inside is held to the frame with those turn-buttons sold for keeping the screen in screen doors.

Invisible near each lower corner are some magnets behind the map; Dad keeps pins in an altoids tin which he just sticks to the map.

I bought a dado set to do this. The Bosch 4100 doesn’t work super well with wide dado sets—it seems like they don’t like to sit right if you get out to the threaded part of the arbor. If I did this again, I’d probably use a router to get cleaner half-lap joints.

It’s really heavy but we hung it with one of those bent-metal cleats you can buy and have had no problems.