OP 3 UV acrylic

oaksmithstudio · Post by **oaksmithstudio** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 4:51 pm

Hi all,

We have a customer who wants to get a valuable piece of original art framed and has very specific instructions from the US based artists. These include "UV op3 plexi". We phoned Hinton Wholesale, who we use for glass and acrylic, and they have never heard of it either. They instead suggested UV VA-grade acrylic which is super high spec and will hopefully satisfy our client. Just curious if this op3 plexi is available in the UK.

Thanks!
Anna

framemaker · Post by **framemaker** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 5:02 pm

Hi Anna,

welcome to the forum

my first guess would be that this is Tru Vue Optium 3mm museum acrylic which is anti reflective and with a high UV filter

you can get it from glass and mirror/wessex

You can also get Perspex VE/VA which is marketed as museum grade acrylic, G&M also sell other types of UV acrylic

Google brings this up:

http://www.completeframers.com/OP_3_UV_Plexi.php

Glass and Mirror used to sell this Cyro Acrylite, I still have some somewhere, and I am pretty sure it was marketed as Artshield...

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 6:43 pm

Optium Acrylic is a Tru Vue product, it's optically coated, abrasion resistant and UV filtering. It's extremenly expensive, especially the 6mm version which I think you have to buy a whole (massive) sheet of, regardless of how much you need, and that'll set you back about £4000!

The optical coatings won't protect the artwork and neither will the abrasion resistant coatings - acrylic may be a better choice than glass because if the glass breaks it could damage the artwork, but that would be the only benefit, regards protection, over glass. Wessex/Glass and mirror do a non-optically coated Abrasion-Resistant acrylic with 100% UV protection which is far cheaper than optium.

oaksmithstudio · Post by **oaksmithstudio** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 7:36 pm

Thanks!! That's very helpful indeed. I'll be discussing this with the client hopefully tomorrow and might just phone Glass & Mirror to get their opinion and see exactly what they stock.

Anna

oaksmithstudio · Post by **oaksmithstudio** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 7:47 pm

What does "optically coated" actually mean?

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Mon 13 Jun, 2011 8:13 pm

It means that head-on; in normal lighting conditions, it's 'invisible'

Optically coated glass is called 'AR' (anti-reflective) but when acrylic is referred to as 'AR' it stands for 'Abrasion Resistant' - so it's referred to as optically coated! Confused?

Don't get Ant-Reflective (or optically coated) confused with Non-Reflective or Non-Glare - that's the acid-etched fuzzy stuff.

oaksmithstudio · Post by **oaksmithstudio** » Tue 14 Jun, 2011 7:25 pm

Thanks for the explanation. I phoned Glass & Mirror today and indeed Artshield is the German made equivalent of the US stuff, which is not available in the UK market.

Does anyone know what VA actually stands for?

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Tue 14 Jun, 2011 9:21 pm

Some googling finds plenty outside of the framing trade, but not what 'VA' actually stands for...... or 'VE'!

But from this link http://www.acrylicsheetsdirect.co.uk/ it seems that the 'VE' has more UV protection.

"Perspex VA Museum Grade is a colourless, cast acrylic sheet with integral UV protection and is suitable for specialist glazing applications and display cases. Perspex® VE is characterised by a slight yellow hue, derived from the UV inhibitor which acts to block out 99.99% of UV rays and is intended more for the protection of highly sensitive museum exhibits"

G&M artshield UV claims 100% though, has no yellow (or any other colour) hue and is Abrasion Resistant, so I'd not worry about it too much.

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