What we're talking about here as "relief" maps are not just lakes,
mountains, hills, river valleys, etc. But, we should also consider John
Sherman's crews' efforts to make Braille maps of the UW campus where the
3Dness of the maps was formed by making pasta shapes glued on metallic
sheets which had holes poked in them. The metallic sheets were placed on
top of a space from which the air above the metallic sheets could be later
evacuated through the holes in the metallic sheets as the plastic sheet was
melted.  Next, a plastic sheet was laid on the top of the metallic sheets
and a heating unit was placed above plastic sheet.  When everything was in
place, the heating unit was turned on and the plastic sheet gradually
melted and took on the shapes of the pasta and the Braille letters, voila,
a Braille map of one section of the campus.  I think they ultimately had
about 9 or 12 sections (about 10 or 12 inches on a side so each section was
square) by the time they finished.

I actually saw some similar ones in Paris when I was there in September,
1977, but they clearly weren't made with pasta.  I wasn't successful in
finding the maker so I could learn how they they made theirs which were of
the Marais area near the Seine.  The had about 6 A4 sheets of plastic for
the neighborhood.

As for asbestos I don't recall any of that but I have no idea why.

virginia     🙋🐰
(Hetrick) here in SoCal