The Framers Forum

Hello everyone,
I am trying to figure out the best way to create spacers for an aluminium frame . Where I live, I have no access to ready made plastic spacers like FrameTek Framespace etc so one option would be for me to make them out of something like foam board / mat board such as in this video:
https://youtu.be/UWEH3VItA5Q
What is the best archival way to glue the spacers onto the aluminium moulding , I wouldn't want it to peel off after I have handed it over to the client. I am not sure but I don't think aluminium behaves the same way as wood right?
Someone in here suggested in another thread that one could instead create a frame out of the spacers and then place it in without glueing , but not sure if it won't warp over time and stick out or even worse collapse.
So what do you guys think?

My first thought is double-sided sticky foam tape. It's the stickiest stuff I have ever seen and lasts a long time.

prospero wrote:My first thought is double-sided sticky foam tape. It's the stickiest stuff I have ever seen and lasts a long time.

Yeah but isn't aluminium kinda slippery? Plus I heard to never rely on double sided anything coz they always fail, so you need to add some sort of glue.

Or did you mean to tape it to the glass itself? And is it archival?

This isn't really answering your question but, you can get aluminium moulding that has a 'built in' glass spacer as it were. The design has a separate slot for the glass.

Hi from the US.

An "old fashion way" to secure a strip of foam board into the rabbit (rebate) of a frame is to use a few dots of PVA glue to the strip and then press into position. Scraps of glass or board can be used to position the strips the desired distances as the glue dries. This can be used for wood or metal frames.

For metal frames, you might want to sand the inner surface to roughen it up for better adhesion.

David McCormack wrote:This isn't really answering your question but, you can get aluminium moulding that has a 'built in' glass spacer as it were. The design has a separate slot for the glass.

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Stop teasing me, that was plan A actually
Unfortunately it was very hard to source that here in my country and shipping it from US or Europe meant it would end up being super expensive more so than the art itself lol a tiny frame would be 100$ just for the aluminium without anything else, so it didnt make financial sense. I went with available option B which doesn't have that integrated spacer in the moulding itself. Ofcourse I will keep an eye on that in case I find new dealers, but right now this is the best I can do.

JFeig wrote:Hi from the US.

An "old fashion way" to secure a strip of foam board into the rabbit (rebate) of a frame is to use a few dots of PVA glue to the strip and then press into position. Scraps of glass or board can be used to position the strips the desired distances as the glue dries. This can be used for wood or metal frames.

For metal frames, you might want to sand the inner surface to roughen it up for better adhesion.

Yeah I guess that's what I will end up doing. So I glue the spacers before joining the aluminium chops into a frame right??? Coz that's my other problem, the back of the frame has like a 3cm edge popping out at the back that would support the backboard, that makes it hard to slip in the spacers and to see what you are doing. How close to the glass do you glue the spacers? It has to be very tight right? Coz then it becomes hard afterwords to push in the glass if you have made the slightest mistake.

This might not be so hard as it sounds. Have you considered making up a tray made from foam board and slicing part way through the foam board then folding up the sides and securing the corners of the tray with hinging tape on the outside of the corners. The tray will be held in place by the backing board and the art and mount (if you are using a mount) would be fixed into the the tray.

An alternative method could be to make the tray out of mountboard, fit the artwork and mount (if you are using a mount) into the back of the tray and fit foam board spacers inside the tray to retain the artwork / mount in position once the frame and contents has been fully assembled.

Not your average framer wrote:This might not be so hard as it sounds. Have you considered making up a tray made from foam board and slicing part way through the foam board then folding up the sides and securing the corners of the tray with hinging tape on the outside of the corners. The tray will be held in place by the backing board and the art and mount (if you are using a mount) would be fixed into the the tray.

An alternative method could be to make the tray out of mountboard, fit the artwork and mount (if you are using a mount) into the back of the tray and fit foam board spacers inside the tray to retain the artwork / mount in position once the frame and contents has been fully assembled.

Yeah I saw that here in another thread, where they slightly cut the back of the foamboard on each side to make it easy to bend them n make the tray and then they glue more foamboard strips on the sides. There was also a detailed diagram. I will look for the thread, but some of the comments mentioned it would be weak, because only a thin layer of paper would be holding the resulting mountboard to the sides and with the pressure of the backboard it may sink in. Remember I have to place those metal clips at the back to push everything in.

Not your average framer wrote:This might not be so hard as it sounds. Have you considered making up a tray made from foam board and slicing part way through the foam board then folding up the sides and securing the corners of the tray with hinging tape on the outside of the corners. The tray will be held in place by the backing board and the art and mount (if you are using a mount) would be fixed into the the tray.

An alternative method could be to make the tray out of mountboard, fit the artwork and mount (if you are using a mount) into the back of the tray and fit foam board spacers inside the tray to retain the artwork / mount in position once the frame and contents has been fully assembled.

This is what you mean right?? viewtopic.php?f=13&t=2101&start=20

I forgot all about that technique from the 2008 post. You can also make sloped sides with that process.

JFeig wrote:I forgot all about that technique from the 2008 post. You can also make sloped sides with that process.

What do you mean by "sloped"?

artyst wrote: Yeah but isn't aluminium kinda slippery? Plus I heard to never rely on double sided anything coz they always fail, so you need to add some sort of glue.

Or did you mean to tape it to the glass itself? And is it archival?

I can only speak from experience: I once adhered a four-gang power socket to the back of a cabinet (HiFi) with d/s foam tape
and more than ten years later I tried to remove it. I literally couldn't prise it off with a crowbar. Bear in mind that it was
quite a heavy object fixed to a laminate surface I think that was quite impressive as far as grippness goes. I had to saw it off in the end.
I first came across the tape when building radio-controlled model aircraft where the tape was used to fix the control servos. Had many a
crash and the servos never separated from the wreckage.

As for 'archival' issues, do you mean the longevity of the tape itself or the possible adverse effects it may have on the art? If you follow the
principle of archival framing, tape used for this purpose should not contact the art so the question is not really relevant.

artyst wrote:some of the comments mentioned it would be weak, because only a thin layer of paper would be holding the resulting mountboard to the sides and with the pressure of the backboard it may sink in. Remember I have to place those metal clips at the back to push everything in.

It does not have to be weak, if you cut some small foam board spacers to fit into the gaps where the sides of folds in the box are made, then the backing board can be bearing on these and the sides of the folded box instead of the board at the back of the box. In fact there is no reason why these spacers should not be cut a little larger to keep the backing board slightly further away from the board at the back of the folded back.

prospero wrote:
I can only speak from experience: I once adhered a four-gang power socket to the back of a cabinet (HiFi) with d/s foam tape
and more than ten years later I tried to remove it. I literally couldn't prise it off with a crowbar. Bear in mind that it was
quite a heavy object fixed to a laminate surface I think that was quite impressive as far as grippness goes. I had to saw it off in the end.
I first came across the tape when building radio-controlled model aircraft where the tape was used to fix the control servos. Had many a
crash and the servos never separated from the wreckage.

As for 'archival' issues, do you mean the longevity of the tape itself or the possible adverse effects it may have on the art? If you follow the
principle of archival framing, tape used for this purpose should not contact the art so the question is not really relevant.

Ok so do you mean to use the tape itself instead of the spacers or to use it to stick the spacers to the aluminium?
Yeah you have a point about archival, it's not really going to touch the art coz I am float mounting it, but was thinking of maybe offgassing issues.
PS: I want it to stick yes but not that good haha in case I make an error and need to remove it

Just make a coved box as in this thread https://www.theframersforum.com/viewtop ... ox#p108859

or just turn it into a normal box with 90 degree walls , that would be strong, once it is in the frame

Cove boxes can look good from a presentation perspective as well and it's a versatile technique which can be used to fulfill many different requirement. If you have not used this technique before, it might be a good one to add to your available future options as you never know when it might be just the right solution for a particular job.

Steve N wrote:Just make a coved box as in this thread https://www.theframersforum.com/viewtop ... ox#p108859

or just turn it into a normal box with 90 degree walls , that would be strong, once it is in the frame

Yeah if I will make a box it will be 90 degrees for sure coz I can't afford to lose space, the mounted art is already very close to the edges of the frame. It looks nice that way tho, but not for my current project.

So it says to make the box out of mountboard , is that the same as mat? So it's thin right? Would I then need to fortify it with glued foamboard on the sides and from the back?

In England, we tend to call it mountcard, while you call it a mat, the same really

Once you have made the box, folded up the sides, use wet gum tape to join the corners, once dry , the corners will be solid, if you make the box about 1mm smaller than the glass, once you have mounted the artwork and are ready to assemble, put the (cleaned ) glass on top of your box, run some tape (P90 should be okay) along the side of the glass (about 3-4mm in from the edge of the glass, and fold down onto the outside of the box, you will then have one solid package, once you have put the frame together, have a look on the front, if any tape is showing, run a brand new sharp blade along the sight edge of the frame to trim any excess tape

Actually.... While sticky foam tape will stick like the proverbial, it is a sacrificial method. If you wanted to remove it,
say to replace broken glass then it would be a pain to scrape it all off and the spacers would need replacing. On the whole not
really an elegant way of using spacers. OK for cheapo jobs, but for 'proper' fine art better ways are called for.
Thin wood strips faced with mount (mat) board would be better.