Quality of foamboard

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Rainbow
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Quality of foamboard

Post by Rainbow »

Not your average framer wrote:lighter textiles are pinned to 5mm foamboard with conservation mountboard between the foamboard
^ This cropped up on my thread about, er, threads :D

I've got some bits of foamboard that I've had for probably 2-3 years and it still looks pristine. However, I recently saw some foamboard (came with some packaging) which was spotted with brown stains. So Mark's post has prompted me to ask, should I always put a barrier sheet between the textile and the foamboard - and just the face side or both sides? What about the edges? And is it OK to tape or glue the barrier sheet to the foamboard to make handling easier?

Thanks :)
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Re: Quality of foamboard

Post by Justintime »

I use cotton rag board, as previously mentioned, with Wessex FO6 acid free buffered 5mm foam board, atg taped together.
I've been wondering about taping the edges of the foamboard with white gummed tape too..
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Re: Quality of foamboard

Post by Not your average framer »

How do you compare different brands of foamboard with each other? I've no idea, different things are claimed about foam board, but usually meaningful information seems pretty hard to come by. Probably the best answer is that we don't know anything trustworthy, or particularly useful to know.

What do we do about it? Well, I think there are various different ways of looking at this. I seen details published by some suppliers and even seen it taught that it's o.k. to just lace textiles straight onto foamboard. Much of this info may be a few years ago, maybe longer than that.

Then some suppliers state that their foamboard is of conservation quality. There is no recognised specification for conservation foamboard, so what does that mean? We don't know!

Am I right to place a piece of alkaline buffered conservation board between the foamboard and the textiles being framed. Well, it's a bit of a safety measure. The alkaline buffering, hopefully limits the effect of anything acidic coming from the foamboard over time. Do I need to do this? I don't know I'm just guessing.

Is Justine's cotton rag board a better option, well if there was no foamboard present at all, then probably yes and it is quite easy to sew through cotton rag board, or push pins into it, if it's a reasonable thickness. Well, I'm not claiming to be an expert, but just doing what makes sense to me.

If you want to tape over the edges of the foamboard, I'm not sure if you need to do that, I don't think a single layer of white paper tape, counts for a significant barrier, if you are that concerned perhaps you might consider the Linco aluminium barrier tape. I expect that there will be plenty of different ideas about this and maybe we shall learn a few things along the way.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Rainbow
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Re: Quality of foamboard

Post by Rainbow »

Justintime wrote:Wessex FO6 acid free buffered 5mm foam board
:Slap: Doh! I don't know how I managed to miss that! (well actually I do - I obviously didn't read to the bottom of the page, thinking that it was just bigger sizes as you went down the list :oops: )

Thanks for that, Justin, and for your very helpful answer, Mark.
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Re: Quality of foamboard

Post by Not your average framer »

There's no diffinitive instructions that I'm aware of anywhere, telling us that we should be using some sort of barrier board between foam board and textile art. This is certainly not something that we need to do to comply with any particular requirements, but there's no denying that for some of us that we are not completely sure whether all foamboards are the same, or if the contents of foamboard are always of conservation friendly..

Some of us just want to be safe rather sorry and applying our own better precausions, just in case. I certainly would not want abody thinking that they are somehow missing the mark, if you are not including some sort of barrrier, or filter, some please don't get unnecesarily hung up about this. In my own case, I usually have plenty of conservation mountboard scraps left over from other jobs, so it costs virtually nothing to do this and at the end of the day, for me it's just a matter of personal choice.

It's a very interesting thread and perhaps someone with a more recognised standing within our busness, would care to add some more on this subject.
Mark Lacey

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― Geoffrey Chaucer
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