It's Done!

In March, 2012, I started thinking about making the map again, but this time making it permanent - framing it.

In October, 2012, I worked on the design. It would have:

2 panes of glass, viewable on both sides
about 24,000 pennies, 6 layers thick
acrylic disks, the same size as pennies, to hold the pennies within the frame
still no glue - the pennies will be held in place by the acrylic and the glass, and the acrylic and glass by the frame

I started building it on November 4th, 2012, and finished on September 11th, 2014.

It took 875 hours, spread over 22 months. (same as working full time, 40 hours a week, for 5 months.)

It has 24,204 pennies, 4,179 acrylic disks, and it weighs 554 pounds.

Here's a close-up of one of the joints in the frame.

And a close-up of Minnesota.