The Framers Forum

Hi Everyone,

I've read this board for a while now for some tips but this is my first post.

I am a photographer and I'm getting a bunch of mounted landscapes together, I did a few 11x14's in bags, I had the mounts cut and sent to me so I had to just tape the prints to the front mount and glue the front to the back so the print can be re mounted in future.

So far so good, I did about 30 of these and was really pleased, they are all bagged up and ready to go.

So next I decided to do some larger prints, 30x20 prints in a 40x30 mount, I followed the same procedure, mounted them and left them under a bit of pressure for a week. I came back today to see how they were and they had a horrible wave/ripple to them, luckily I only did 3 but I could really do with a bit of advice, would I be better using cornor mounts on the front or something? the only other thing I can think of is they were left face down so the weight of the paper didn't have any support, could this be a factor? I think it must be the type of tape, any help with what sort of tape I need would be appretiated. I imgagine I can salvage the prints but the boards will probably have had it!

I apologise for my naivety, I just read a post about artists and framers not having the best of relationships so was a little worried about posting. I have used proffesionals to cut and supply the mount and board. Any help you can give would be great.

P

All papers, including photographs, are slightly to moderately hygroscopic i.e. they will absorb and lose ambient moisture, so they will expand and contract slightly. The larger the paper, the more exaggerated it will appear. As soon as you tape something down, you limit the expansion of the paper so it appears to buckle. Even if it is not taped, you will still have the problem.

With photos that size, you might consider having them dry mounted or bonded (glued) to a rigid backing like foam board. Once they are down, they are down and flat forever.

The down side of mounting this way is that once you use adhesive on any art, you reduce the value to a serious collector.

You could always mount them down onto ArtCare Restore. That's generally easily restorable to it's unmounted state.

It's great for photographs and inkjet prints - so long as they're not too glossy - as the glue is strong enough to hold them flat but they can be unglued very easily.

Talk to the person suppliying your mounts and see if he has facilities to dry mount. If not I would look for someone (like myself but I suspect I am too far away) who can do the dry mounting and mounts for you. You might even want to discuss framing with them as well.

This is an irreversible (in most cases) procedure so not suitable for Ltd Editions etc.

Once you see the difference you won't go back to taping your prints.

The substrate does need to be suitable for the job e.g. display board or foam board NOT MDF or regualr mountboard.

For more info from the maket leading company follow this link:

http://www.hotpress.co.uk/

Steve Goodall is the man at Hotpress and a forum member so he may well pitch in with his advice once he has had his tea and toast this morning.

John.

Thanks for that guys, I think I'll take them to a framers on Monday

Your not taping all the way round with sellotape are you???

Do you need to glue the mounts together?

I'm not using sellotape no (give me some credit)

I was taping the vertical sides as instructed by a framer but I think I'll just use T hinges now and not glue the board and hold them together in the polyprop roll in the racks, would this work?

try just using a small piece of tape on the top edge, not all the way across just in the centre. most artists that i sell for either just tack the backboard in place with a couple of squares of double sided or hinge them together from the top with tape, the poly will keep them safe.

Would 1 small piece be enough given the prints are 30" wide? I was going to do 2 t hinges but would I still get a ripple from any movement?

One top hinge is not good enough if you look on this forum you will find numerous posts re this 'T' Hinges are the preferred method and depending on the weight of your print either Japanese paper with paste or as a second resort precoated archival tape. Affix two hinges approx 1/5th the way in from either edge. I'll post links later as Ive just had my laptop nicked with all my archive on the hdd.

As afr as the larger prints are concerned you should increase the thickness of your mount board from the standard 1400 microns to at least 2200 +

gesso wrote:Affix two hinges approx 1/5th the way in from either edge

In her book 'Conservation Mounting for Prints and Drawings(A manual based on current practice at the British Museum)' Joanna Kosek recommends that when using 2 T-hinges they should be a quarter of the width in from either side. The theory is that each hinge supports the weight of half the print, and that weight acts straight down through the hinge. Likewise if you consider more than 2 hinges to be needed then the artwork should be split into imaginary equal sections and each section hinged from its top-middle.

I have found this book to be excellent and fairly clear in its instructions, unlike a few others i have looked at.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Conservation-Mo ... 943&sr=8-1