I'm pleased that lake maps seem to be becoming a trend. Aside from being just a bit of novelty I always enjoy carving up some cartography. In this case one of the maps included a legend that the client wanted me to duplicate. That took extensive use of the little 1/8" alphabet stamps that have been really hit and miss in the past. This time I threw out everything the manufacturer suggested for aligning the characters and worked out my own technique on some scrap. On the whole I think that worked out rather much better.
Normally I'd use a medium weight leather for the maps so that there's some height difference between the map and the frame. However these are two, large 11 x 17" maps and the only hide I could cut them both from was the thickest hide I have in stock. So in this one case the map is flush with the frame.
