Dry mount mayhem

Have any of you experienced problems with dry mounting in very humid weather? I trashed several FB prints yesterday. I put the print with the dry mount tissue between two boards as usual, and the print stuck to the UPPER board too. It was a disaster. I am thinking that high humidity might have been the culprit.

Dry both your print and the mount board separately between sheets of brown kraft paper (or the archival equivalent) before you bring everything together in the press.

You don't use release paper?

I can't really think of a reason that the print would have stuck to the upper board unless you didn't trim the excess dry mounting tissue well enough, or you had the temperature way to high. I use a press to flatten prints between two 4-ply boards, and have never had the print stick to the top in the way you are describing. I do not use release paper, either.

With that said, humidity is an issue with dry mounting - you should be pre-drying all materials used in the process. Darkroommike touches on that above. This would include your print, the board that you are mounting to, and the two boards you are using the press between. Pre-drying usually involves placing the materials between kraft paper in the heated press, and closing (but not clamping) the lid. Heat it for 30 seconds and then lift the lid. The idea is to get rid of any moisture. Keep the press below 100C / 212F - at that temperature moisture turns to steam, which is no good.

eddie said:

You don't use release paper?

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When I MOUNT I use release paper, it keeps the goo under control; when I am drying out boards and prints I need someplace for the moisture to go and kraft paper works well for this, silicon paper won't let the steam escape. My workflow is something like this:

1. Trim mount board to final size
2. Dry the mount and the print separately in the dry mount press after the press has warmed up, sandwich the mount and the print in Kraft paper. Do only one set of mount and print at a time.
3. Tack the tissue to the middle of the print and trim to the final size, a fancy schmanzy rotary print trimmer is ideal but an Olfa cutter and straight edge work just as good.
4. Tack two adjacent edges of the tissue to the mount to position the print and tissue into position.
5. Mount.

Repeat for each print until completed.

Where I used to work we mounted a lot of proof prints to small 5x8 cards for image retrieval (pre-computer) got pretty good at it. The old Kodak material and the Seal MT-5 worked well, Kodak Type II when it was first introduced really messed with out system, prints had to cool before they would stop moving on the mount card, and we never did really like it. We migrated to Seal Color Mount, as soon as it was available, for filing RC proofs.

Thanks a lot for all the info. Throughout my years of dabbling in photography, I have always tried to avoid mounting and framing and thus my education in that department is quite poor. In fact, I had never heard of releasing paper. Never. I called a local framing shop yesterday (Patrick Gordon Framing, in Ottawa, the best in the city) and the young lad there went over the process with me, even giving me some releasing paper to get me started.

I have dry mounted photos before but the big difference this time was the humidity. I guess both the print and the materials were holding moisture. Also, when I started to experience problems, I turned UP the heat on the press which was the wrong thing to do. I was already a little too hot.

Oh well, you are never to old to learn. Thanks a lot, fellas.

When the humidity is high I will press the two rag boards that I am using to hold the mount tissue and print.. This seems to release some of the moisture in the board.

I never use release paper and have not had any issues in our changing season climate. I am now using a Drytac Vacumn Press and I find about 190degree for about two minutes works really nice.

I use a dry mount press only to flatten FB prints and at has happened to me that a print stuck to the upper board, due to humidity. A simple way to prevent this: put the print in the hot press, close the press for only 1 or 2 seconds, open it, move the print around a bit, close the press again for a few seconds, open it again, then close it for the normal time.

Ron789 said:

I use a dry mount press only to flatten FB prints and at has happened to me that a print stuck to the upper board, due to humidity. A simple way to prevent this: put the print in the hot press, close the press for only 1 or 2 seconds, open it, move the print around a bit, close the press again for a few seconds, open it again, then close it for the normal time.

Click to expand...

Forgot to mention that as well, the double pop helps get rid of moisture.

Ron789 said:

I use a dry mount press only to flatten FB prints and at has happened to me that a print stuck to the upper board, due to humidity. A simple way to prevent this: put the print in the hot press, close the press for only 1 or 2 seconds, open it, move the print around a bit, close the press again for a few seconds, open it again, then close it for the normal time.

Click to expand...

Good tip

I live in a humid climate but haven't had a tissue failure in decades. Just learn the basics first. I don't have time at the moment to outline these;
so a good place to start is the little Seal drymounting handbook. But briefly-predrying both board and paper is essential.

darkroommike said:

Dry both your print and the mount board separately between sheets of brown kraft paper (or the archival equivalent) before you bring everything together in the press.

Click to expand...

+1
not just in humid weather... always.

DREW WILEY said:

I live in a humid climate but haven't had a tissue failure in decades. Just learn the basics first. I don't have time at the moment to outline these;
so a good place to start is the little Seal drymounting handbook. But briefly-predrying both board and paper is essential.

Click to expand...

Another +1.

I hope to be printing the same neg this week and I am going to try out most of these suggestions: pre-drying, release paper, etc. I don't dry mount a lot, but I have done it enough and never had any problems until I tried it in this very humid weather. It is going to be hot and sticky again so this will be a good test.

Thanks everyone.