The Framers Forum

I'm wondering what would be the best price deal for conservation mountboard, which would only ever be used for undermounts. No one will ever see it inside the frames, so price is the main criteria. I need it for a large framing order.

Thanks in anticipation,
Mark

colourmount key range from simons isnt badly priced

think you need to buy 40 sheets or so

other thing is what about a backing board with conservation liner?

or arquadia do a 550micron backing sheet which they say is conservation

Backing board with conservation face available from Sean at Ventons, I use it and find it very good

Ian

Someone on ebay is selling pallet loads of Arqadia mountboard, everything from 200 sheets to 50 in various colours, I think it works out between £1 and £1.5 / sheet.

Their location is Milton Keynes so I wondered if it was actually Arqudia.

Hmmm. Just had a look. Strange size 1020 x 810mm.

It's not Arqadia selling it. The vendors details are on ebay.

1020 x 810 mm is 40 x 32 - quite a common size.

Jonny2morsos wrote:Hmmm. Just had a look. Strange size 1020 x 810mm.

It's not Arqadia selling it. The vendors details are on ebay.

To save others searching..
Frame Maker Milton Keynes
It says its cream core
40 x 32 ins - standard USA mat board size
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/framemakermk?_ ... 4340.l2563

One way is to ask reps to tip you the wink when there are any stacks of disco'd mountboard going cheep. A lot of firms are only too pleased to shift remaining stock in one go at the right price.

I've only ever seen that (at least on any grand scale) once; when Arqadia dropped the Crescent range - I bought a herd of ragmat (think that's what it was called - cotton backing paper and core with a paper surface anyway) for a quid a sheet!

Arqadia also, up until quite recently, did a board called 'Eco-Board' - it was a nasty dappled green, very very dense, and cost £1:64 for a jumbo (40x60" +) board. I used to buy it in packs of 25 for CMC slip mats - it was (FATG) conservation quality - I still have 2 or 3 sheets left and when they have gone I don't know what I'm gonna use for a slip mat for oversize jobs.

Just have to mention that these combined backing/undermount boards are not conservation quality, the whole board needs to be conservation quality; not just a few microns of (dubious quality anyway) paper bonded to some brown stuff - it's a sales gimmick and it's also not a good idea, conservation job or not, to hinge to a backing board, there needs to be a separate 'under-mount' - which is what the OP is looking for.

I've been looking at Simons key range too! The price is not bad, so at the moment this is probaby my best solution.

Check out the spec - you get what you pay for.

I would fully agree with John (Robo), there should always be a proper undermount. Athough I often use a conservation type backing board, it never replaces the undermount.

The conservation type board I use has a water resistant back, which is good for in old Devon cottages and barn conversions with slightly damp walls.

Also It looks classy and since the suppier sells it as a conservation product, it has good marketing potential if you choose to push that point.

Roboframer wrote:1020 x 810 mm is 40 x 32 - quite a common size.

32" is 812.8mm and 40" is 1016mm, OK thats not a huge difference but if you are cutting 20" x 16" mounts you are going to be a little bit out on the shorter side and bearing in mind frames are generally made 2mm oversize the mount is going to rattle around a bit.

Some board manufacturers have changed their size to 1200 mm x 815 mm which I find a frustration because it is not really practical to trim 2.2mm from a sheet of mount board when cutting 20x16 mounts.

Well, if you want to mix metric with Imperial .......................

Truth is that whatever the stated size for boards is, it's never bang on (or glass) - a board with a stated size of 44x32 should make four 20x16"s with 4" wastage on the 44 side and absolutely no wastage on the 32" side; you should be able to cut it in half and get two sixteens - won't ever happen.

It is not a case of wanting to mix metric with imperial but in this business we seem to be stuck with a lot of imperial measurements like 20" x 16" frames and all the imperial photo sizes 6x4, 7x5, 8x10 etc.

I would far rather just have the metric system because it makes sense not to have fractions e.g 3 and a 1/4 inch borders but 3 and 3/4 at the bottom. It makes it too easy to miscalculate.

Interestingly the photographic associations seemed to have gone over to 500 x 400mm max size of mounted competition work. Then of course they come in with a 16" x 12" print for mounting With a 400 x 500 mount this does give scope for trimming back a 815mm board.

Around 40yrs ago I started secondary school and at that time metric was being taught to the exclusion of imperial, decimalisation of the pound came in but here we are still with miles per gallon and all the other oudated units of measure.

We sometimes use Arqadia 1100 micron conservation board and that works out cheaper than mountboard and of course there is the 550 micron board stcstc mentioned. But as we all have our own discounts/deal/whatever with our suppliers, surely the first thing to do would be to approach your main suppliers and see what they can offer you?

Arqadia give good discounts on buying 125 sheets of a mix of boards, it should work out quite economical.

What Mark has not said is the quantity he needs and the dimensions.

Just thinking someone with a contract to supply a lot of mounts might have some fall outs they want to get rid of.

No I want to buy full sheets! I have plenty of my own drop-outs and left overs. To be honest, searching for a left over of the right size is just a waste of valuable time!

In fact, I'm planning on cutting down all my left overs, which are smaller than 20" x 16" into 12" x 16" , or into 12" x 10". Everything smaller can go into the dumpster.

There's no advatage in in keeping lots of left overs, you never get to use most of it anyway. It's what your dumpster is for! Life's to short!

unless you have a few hundred frames to do for an order

what your gonna save isnt actually that much for the effort to find it

i mean if you save say £1 per sheet, and your order needs 100 sheets. so £100 saving

now if you have an order that requires 100 sheets, 100 bucks is neither here or there on the retail price of the order