The Framers Forum

Anybody come across an inkjet print where silicon release paper welds itself to the surface? I have dry-mounted hundreds of glossy inkjet prints over the years and thought nothing of doing this one, it was Epson according to the back of the paper. I tacked the corner to the board and went to remove the release paper and it wouldn't budge. Sometimes they do this, so I waited for it to cool and tried again...Nothing moved!
Sat and thought for a while, then tried gently pulling...again no joy. Luckily the print had a white border, but the release paper had also stuck to the coloured area as well. On the white border bit, I tried lighter fluid..no luck. Tried warming with hair drier. Eventually moistening seemed to have limited success and an hour later with judicious application of water and gentle easing, it came off. So that's another category of artwork that won't be going in the dry-mounter any more.

From our experience most of (but not all) the ink jet prints we see nowadays are fairly stable. But, there is always one that slips by our beady little eyes.

We have found it prudent to ask the customer how much they know about the print i.e. when was it done, what kind of inks were used, etc.? Many don’t know, but at least, to them it shows were are paying attention. Most ink jet prints we see are done on home computers, so they can be easily reproduced. For those that cannot, we suggest that they bring in a throw away, test print for us to play with.

But, something we’ve begun to do is to pre-dry the release paper before we cover the print. It appears to us that we used to have more problems when the ambient humidity was high (like in the summer). It seems to us that the release paper absorbs moisture which, in our opinion, seems to exacerbate the release paper sticking.

Since we have begun this pre-drying process, we haven’t had too many problems.

Watch out for prints on "Crystal" photo paper (think it's by Fuji). The substrate bubbled on me with the tacking iron, thankfully, 'cause it would have been very nasssty indeed if it had made it it as far as the hot press...

Thanks for the tip about pre-drying, I might try that. As to Crystal, I have done several of those with no problem. On balance I think I'll cold mount all of them in future to bee on the safe side.