The Framers Forum

I believe it's standard practice to use 5mm foamboard when lacing fabric. By the time you've added the mount and the undermount, it makes quite a thick sandwich. There's no room left for the backboard, which I always have to fix to the frame, instead of inside the frame, and sometimes it restricts the choice of moulding to those with a reasonable rebate. I've toyed with the idea of using barrier board instead of undermount which would make it less thick, but barrier board seems a bit flimsy in view of the bulky fabric at the back.

So my question is... is there a problem with using 3mm foamboard instead of 5mm to make the sandwich less bulky?

i often use 3mm instead of 5mm for that very reason - so many moulding just aren't deep enough. if the piece isn't too big then you shouldn't have a problem.

I usually use 2.4mm or 3.5mm conservation mount board.

Although I generally use foamboard for fabric framing myself, I still wonder if foamboard does not survive the years as well as conservastion, or even cotton rag mountboard. Some years ago, a customer brought in a couple of framed prints that had been framed in perhps the 1960's/1970's and the customer wanted them re-framed. The prints were quite famous ones, connected with quite a prestigious gallery, but frankly they looked a bit dated and I doubt if they justified spending much money on re-framing.

Unfortunately much on the core of the mountboard on to which these prints had been dry mounted had crumbled into dust. While I will admit that I don't know if the core material is the same as what is now used, I don't feel that this level of deterioration would have occurred with mountboard. I don't currently use mountboard, because my normal way of stretching fabric on to foamboard is hold the fabric in place with dressmakers ball headed pins, while lacing the frabric in place, followed by removing the pins.

I'm not really thinking that this same method, would be as suitable with mountboard, so I was just wondering how those who stretch fabric on to mountboard are doing this.

Thanks,
Mark

I generally only use foamcore for formers in sports shirts, usually 5mm for regidity on a large size. For lacing fabrics I use a regular or thick conservation mountboard.

Not your average framer wrote: Sun 08 Sep, 2019 8:31 pm ...my normal way of stretching fabric on to foamboard is hold the fabric in place with dressmakers ball headed pins, while lacing the frabric in place, followed by removing the pins.

I do the same, but with T-pins.

Thanks for all the assurances that 3mm is fine, that will make life much easier.

I would quality the use of the 3mm foamboard with the thought that 5mm foamboard might be advisable in cases where the size of the fabric requires something a little more rigid to avoid bowing when laced. A lot depends up on how much tension is created by the lacing.