The Framers Forum

A customer has asked if I can frame a relief map, without glass. It's about 1m square. If it was a poster, I'd probably roller it on to a self-adhesive board, but obviously I can't do that with a relief map. I haven't seen it yet but apparently it has a flat border round it, but maybe only about 0.5" - 1". I'm seeing it this afternoon. Any advice would be appreciated!

Relief maps are often not square round the edges. I'm not very keen on doing them. Some are made for vacuum formed plastic and these have a limited useful life. With age the plastic becomes brittle and develops stresses causing the edges to go out of square even more. Not great fun to do, I think! The very thin plastic does not like being hung in a warm place.

They don't make great maps anyway, as the map is printed while the plastic is flat and the map is vacuum formed to show the contours afterwards, so the plastic stretches as it takes shape and the exact alignment of the map details to the contours is not very precise.

I would consider setting it back with a spacer inside the rebate. If it flexes then maybe glue to a firm substrate, mdf?

We've got one of Dartmoor in at the moment. After discussion with the customer, we're framing it in a tray frame so that it is set back but they can still touch the surface of the map itself. We are bonding it to the frame with double sided foam tape. The depth of the frame will offer some protection.

They are anticipating having to replace it at some point down the line as the surface gets scuffed and faded by people touching it and saying "I've climbed that Tor" or tracing walking routes on it.

Many thanks for all this help, much appreciated.