Silicone grrr

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girlfromkent
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Silicone grrr

Post by girlfromkent »

Hi All

I have a new artist customer who wants to fix art on board into a tray frame using silicone, raised up on 'spacers' which seems to be an American thing, basically little bits of wood at four points inside the tray, which the art fixes to with silicone. Her idea is that it will be completely reversible. :shock: :head:

Needless to say, this is not my usual method. Usually I make a frame from strip wood or stretcher, glue it to the back of the board, then screw that to the tray.

Does anyone have experience of using silicone to hold canvas panels? 🤔

:sweating: :head: :evil:
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prospero
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by prospero »

Well.... I wouldn't do it that way. But if the artist specifies.

Your method of a frame fixed to the back is the best solution.

As for silicone, the panel will either stay put or drop off at some future unknown time. :roll:
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by Not your average framer »

Silicon used to be lots of framers go to adhesive for fixing all sorts of things into frames, but it is not a very effective bodge and even eats away the patina on older metal items. It is very definitely debatable as to how sucessful it is as something which is able to be resersed when the need arises and less and less framers are using the stuff today. It is also very messy and not particularly easy to clean up and surplus silicone which happens to sqeeze out. Most silicone realses acetic acid as is cures and carries on realsing acetic acid for years, so not necessarily a very help idea. It is also very bad for use of anything containing plaster, or anything chalky as it will carry on eat some of whatever the item is, because acetic acid not only eats chalk, but will carry on eating it for years and years. Strictly speaking framers are not supposed to do anything which alters the condiction of what is being framed, which cannot be safely and completely reversible at a later time. Also if something has been fixed into a frame with something which can cause damage to the framed item, when later attempting to remove it from the frame, that is also not safely reversible.

Other forum members will likely have much to say about this and perhaps will be able to suggest alternative methods of fixing, if you can be more specific about what you want to fix to what. Many framers specialise in framing objects for their customers and this is a good speciality to have! Those who can do this with creativity and imagination can often create good levels of repeat business. I have an electric scroll saw and often producing craddles to hold small itemes in place with hidden retail garment tags, of which I have a large collection of difference sizes to suit almost anything. It is also sometimes possible to retain some small flat items using the replacement stick pad which fix internal car mirrors onto the inside of car windscreens. Very often small independant hardware store sell these at a very helpfully low cost. Lots of people will start to use you for framing old family items which need to be kept safe. Especially badges and medals, it's a worthwhile service for you to offer to your customers. If you can contact a supplier who supplies medal ribbons and broach bars it is not a difficult thing to correctly mount medals ready for framing.

For any given collection of medals there is a correct order in which they need to be mounted on the broach bar and your medal ribbon supplier will be able to tell you how to do this. Those of us who frame medals and items of memorabilia, usually have a preferred range of moulding which we like to use for making up appropriate frames, box frames and display boxes. Very often this may involve creating stacked moulding frames, to create the right depth and appearance. It is no hard to get a good name for doing this sort of work by word of mouth!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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fusionframer
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by fusionframer »

If your artist wants it this way, fix the blocks to the canvas panel using CT1 adhesive rather than silicone.

Then make your tray frame as normal and still screw the panel to the backboard. Then, in the future, if it needed to be reversed, you can unscrew the panel and there is a solvent that will enable you to remove the blocks made be teco who make CT1.

If you CT1 the blocks to the backboard, you can't get to the adhesive to remove it so you that is why you need to still screw to backboard.

I reckon you will be long retired when CT1 fails.

Nick
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Justintime
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by Justintime »

"Bond-It" Saves Nails SF is what I use as a water based, solvent free silicone adhesive. It is plenty strong enough for this and can be reversed by sliding a knife through it in the future to remove blocks. To reverse CT1 with solvent will then be applying solvent to the back of the board.
As an example of the perceived strength of CT1, due to underfloor heating pipes, we used CT1 to attach dividing walls to the floor in our studio build! Imo I think it's overkill and not a product I'd use in framing.
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prospero
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by prospero »

These prepared boards are based on a solid core that is not exactly acid-free. So any agonising about archival
issues with the framing is largely futile. Thee backs have a cover paper which I dare say will delaminate eventually
and this is what the adhesive is clinging to. :roll: The boards are not really intended for work that is supposed to
survive in perpetuity. More of a ground for doing quick preparatory sketches. So gluing them to blocks or a subframe
is not really going to negate from future value. The main thing is that the piece can be taken from the frame easily
by unscrewing the mounting screws.

Having said that, it's not going to spontaneously destruct any time soon (as long as it is looked after - no damp locations).
But we've all seen old boards that had turned to a biscuit-like consistency and very fragile. :(
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by Not your average framer »

I usually just fix these into the frame using framers points and then add a backing board. Too many of these paintings, seem to not be necessarily be painted upto the edge, leaving un-painted areas visible around the edge. Some local amateur artist like to sign their painting to close to the edge and the signatures often become a problem when trying to frame the artwork without obscuring the signature. This is not exactly my idea of fun and usually the artist wants it framed as cheap as possible, so not always possible to do a perfect job at a cheap as possible price! Sounds familiar?
Mark Lacey

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prospero
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Re: Silicone grrr

Post by prospero »

This is floating in a tray frame as I understand it Mark. :wink:
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