# Making an old-world wood print with the Vintage Parchment Map preset > aged-paper tones for an antique cartography look This preset dresses a modern city in old-world clothes: oxblood and sepia roads over a parchment ground, with muted teal water and olive parks. It's designed for UV printing on wood - toggle the background off and the wood grain itself becomes the parchment. Think study walls, whisky-bar decor, anniversary maps of Rome or Vienna. ## What you need - **UV printing:** flatbed UV printer, light hardwood or quality ply panels (maple, birch, white oak - grain should be visible but calm), sanding sealer or sanded-smooth surface - **Sublimation:** sublimation printer + paper, poly-coated hardboard or "vintage" textured sublimation panels, heat press, heat tape, butcher paper - **Laser engraving:** diode or CO2 laser, light [laser-grade plywood](https://yxecreations.com/collections/laser-grade-plywood) or hardwood; optional pre-stain for the parchment tone - **3D printing:** multi-color printer with parchment/cream, brown, teal, and olive filaments ## Step 1 - Start from the preset Open [the Vintage Parchment Map preset](/map-designer?preset=vintage-parchment-map). It loads Rome at zoom 13.4 - old-town scale, where the irregular medieval street pattern is the texture this style wants. The preset rewards cities with tangled historic cores: Rome, Prague, Lisbon, Istanbul, Edinburgh, Quebec City. Search yours and center on the old town, with the river (the `#7FA8A4` teal is gorgeous in this palette) sweeping through a third of the frame. Rigid modern grids fight the vintage look - if your target city is gridded, lean into a riverfront or diagonal rail cut instead. ## Step 2 - Tune the layers One Solid layer group, **Parchment map**: - `land` - `#EFE3C8` parchment. This is the layer you'll hide for wood prints. - `water` - `#7FA8A4` muted verdigris teal. - `landusePark` - `#C9C39A` dry olive; subtle against the parchment, by design. - Roads, dark-to-light: `roadsMotorway` `#7A4A32` width 4, `roadsPrimary` `#7A4A32` width 3, `roadsSecondary` `#8F5E42` width 2, `roadsStreet` `#A3765A` width 1. The browns step from oxblood to tan as roads get smaller - a hand-inked hierarchy. All are dark enough to survive sublimation, and they convert to a clean grayscale ramp for engraving. If you hide the background for wood printing, check your wood tone against the road browns: on darker woods (walnut), lighten the streets to `#B58A6C` or they'll sink into the grain. ## Step 3 - Export - **UV on wood (signature move):** toggle **Background off** in the export modal for a transparent PNG - roads, water, and parks print directly onto the grain, and the wood is the parchment. Keep `landusePark` on or off to taste; it's subtle either way. - **Sublimation:** background ON; the parchment tone is part of the transfer. - **Laser:** combined SVG (the grayscale ramp handles tonal separation in one pass) or per-layer ZIP for power control. - **3D:** 3MF after consolidating browns (below). - A **Hanger hole** suits a small vintage ordinance-survey ornament; **Corner holes** + brass-toned [anodized standoff spacers](https://yxecreations.com/products/4-pack-anodized-standoff-spacers) nail the explorer's-study look on larger panels. Enable small-polygon cleanup if your old town has confetti-sized park slivers. ## UV & Sublimation Printing ### UV printing 1. Export the transparent PNG (Background off). 2. Sand the wood panel to 220 grit and blow it clean; UV ink telegraphs every fiber. 3. In the RIP, place over your panel size. Print color directly with **no white underbase** - letting the grain ghost through the inks is what makes it look aged. 4. Register and print; a satin varnish pass deepens the inks without plasticky gloss. ### Sublimation 1. Print **mirrored** at final size, background ON. 2. Tape face-down to poly-coated hardboard; this preset particularly suits "rustic" textured blanks. 3. Press with the settings recommended for your material, paper, and inks, with butcher paper. 4. Peel hot. The dark browns hold beautifully; expect the `#C9C39A` parks to soften toward the parchment - acceptable, they're a whisper by design. ## Laser Cutting & Engraving ### Laser engraving The best raster candidate among the flat presets: dark roads on a near-white ground converts to exactly what a laser wants to burn. 1. Import the combined SVG at panel size; the brown ramp becomes a grayscale ramp - motorways burn deepest, streets lightest, water mid. 2. Raster-engrave on light ply or maple in one grayscale pass, or run per-layer at stepped power for more control. 3. The parchment `land` barely marks - skip engraving it entirely. 4. Cut the rectangle (or heart/circle if you switched shapes) last. Optional: pre-stain the panel with diluted amber stain first so the unburned areas read as true parchment. ## 3D Printing ### 3D printing 1. Consolidate first: set all three road tiers to `#7A4A32` - three browns one shade apart are indistinguishable in filament and triple your swaps. 2. Export the 3MF; you're down to a tidy four colors: parchment base, brown roads, teal water, olive parks. 3. Slice at 0.16 mm with matte filaments - silk finishes break the vintage spell. 4. A 180 mm plaque with a printed compass-icon overlay (toggle it in the export modal) completes the look. ## Make it yours - Old-soul cities: Prague, Lisbon, Seville, Kyoto, Jerusalem, Quebec City, Charleston. - Nautical-chart swap: water `#5E8C8A` deepened, land `#F2E8CF`, roads `#3D4A52` slate - instant harbor chart for port cities. - Wine-country swap: roads `#5C2E2E`, parks `#8A8B5C` over the same parchment for Tuscany or Bordeaux. - Turn on the **compass icon** overlay in the export modal - no preset wears it better. - UV print onto a cork panel instead of wood; the cork texture reads as ancient paper. - Add a **route layer** in faded ink `#4A3B2A` tracing a grand-tour walking route through the old town. - Heart export shape over Rome or Paris with this palette = the vintage cousin of the Heart Keepsake preset. - Make a "then and now" pair: this preset and the Blueprint preset of the same city, parchment beside drafting blue. --- Open the tool: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/vintage-parchment-map Read online: https://www.mylasertools.com/learn/guides/vintage-parchment-map