Blank mat board

I'm looking for blank, not precut window, mat board. I believe there is a company in Portland Oregon that's recommended but the name escapes me. Any other recommendations for archival white mat board would be welcome.

Any company that sells board will sell you blanks.

Right, any hobby shop should have it, as well as any shop that does framing. There's two kinds. The kind that has acid free paper glued to a center, non archival piece (the most common, and cheap version), and the kind that's expensive and is made from 100% cotton rag. If it's important, use the latter, as w/ the former, the acid in the center sandwiched board will eventually bleed through and discolor your print. It will take many years though. Acid free generally means paper that's made from wood pulp that's been bleached and otherwise chemically treated to remove the acids, while 100% cotton rag means just that. It's museum quality. Do yourself a favor and buy a whole sheet (big!) and cut it down for future stuff, as this will save you a fortune over buying smaller pre cut pieces. Comes in different thicknesses too.

http://www.redimat.com/

On their price list, the far right column is for blanks.

www.framedestination , an Apug sponsor, have a good selection.
I'm not sure about Portland though.

Freestyle (also an APUG partner) sells blank mat board, pre-cut to standard sizes like 11x14" (outer dimensions, this is not a window mat). This is what we generally refer our students to at CPCC. I don't think they carry uncut 32x40" boards, though. If I needed uncut full sheets of mat board, I would go to Dead Link Removed - they have a store here in Charlotte and are based in Boone, NC, home of my alma mater, Appalachian State. And they do ship.

What quality are you looking for? 100% rag?

I have gotten frames from Frame Destination -- great service -- but not mat board. I bought board from Archival Methods with also great service and well protected when shipped (I was buying 20x24).

I bought mats from Frame Destination– good service and quality material. I bought pre-cut, however. Regular mat board I used to buy from Dick Blick, but then I was buying for a school studio and would purchase 100 full sheets (32x40)...probably more than you need. Shipping large boards is difficult and many end up with the corners crimped. In a large studio, you just cut around the problem, knowing the scraps will get used for something, but I wouldn't want that kind of waste at home. Buy local if possible and let the store deal with the loss from shipping.

Documounts was the one, I didn't know they closed after 28 years. I'm looking for 100% rag. I'll get with Framedestination for full sheets which I'm used to anyway. Thanks all!

Daniel Smith in Seattle is my favorite place. danielsmith.com They are always having sales and free shipping with a reasonable size purchase.
dennis

I normally buy full sheets of rag or "museum" board from Blick's, but there is a Blick store a nice 35 minute drive in the country from me (Allentown, Pa -- South Mall).

BEWARE if you buy neilsen baingridge alpharag artcare boards. The quality has gone way downhill no matter who you buy it from. Every sheet has defects and it's become a pain to work around.

dpurdy said:

Daniel Smith in Seattle is my favorite place. danielsmith.com They are always having sales and free shipping with a reasonable size purchase.
dennis

Click to expand...

Dennis, I was looking through my inventory and saw that I had gone to Daniel Smiths last for full sheets. They're on the south end of town and easy to get to. They also have fresh coffee and tea. The store is fairly good sized and the staff is friendly. I'll try to make a trip down this week before my truck goes in for repairs.

Neilsen had a fine status but I've read comments about its quality too. I'll steer clear. Dick Blick and Jerry's Artarama have full sheets of 100% rag also. The nice thing about picking them up is seeing what I get, saving on shipping and the oversized load cost, and the lack of damage unless I'm responsible for it. The trade off is selection and tax. Since Daniel Smith has what I need the tax isn't much to ask.

On another topic I found 20 Neilsen #11 black frames I had in storage since 1981. In sections of course in craft wrappers complete with a big box of hardware. I bought them from Contemporary Frame Co. I checked to see if they were still in business and low and behold they are! I haven't heard them mentioned in any of the forums. They were great people back then.

Thanks for the Frame Destination mentions!!! We really appreciate it!

Frame Destination carries 100% museum cotton rag (no facing paper) from Bainbridge in 4-ply and 8-ply.
The blanks are on this page:
http://www.framedestination.com/Uncut_Matboard.html

We sell cut to a particular size and raw sheets which of course are the most economical since we are not cutting them at all. Even if you buy a full box we still pack that in a larger box and provide extra protection to keep the corners from being damaged in shipping.

Documounts was purchased by Larson Juhl and later when Larson got a new CEO they decided to shut Documounts down.

If you buy pre-cuts in qty of the same size they do not cost much more than full sheets but you save a lot of labor. We use high end production mat cutters that cut much better than most people are able to with a manual mat cutter unless they are very skilled. Also, we try to cut around the defects in the sheets. You can see it in action here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXjSUBhAOK4

We are planning on adding Crescent RagMat early next year and possibly their Museum RagMat.

Cheers,
Mark