Mounting very Large prints for framing/ Acidity/ Archival

[PhilipRingler]

Hello, I want to present my FB black and white mural prints (approximately 36"x56") in wooden frames without glass. I am concerned about the acidity of foam core, the rigidity of museum board and the general archival nature
of this process. I do need my prints to be flat but do not just want to push pin the images to the wall. I want a solid presentation, but cannot figure out a cost effective or workable solution to this problem. Is gatorboard acid free or acid neutral? I have 30 of these prints for my MFA graduate show and I know the presentation alone will cost a few thousand dollars. My hope is that I can sell one or more and recoup my costs.But first I need to assure my customers that they are getting photographs that will last.

 

[richard ide]

Gatorfoam is manufactered by Piedmont Plastics Inc. I suggest you contact them for technical information. I doubt that it is an archival product. I used it for many years but always used neutral PH products for permanence. You might consider aluminum sheet also. Are you going to mount these using a cold or hot process? Not using glass would be ok for short term display as long as you can keep peoples fingers off them.

 

[Bob Carnie]

Phillipe
We use Bainbridge ArtCare products for fibre prints .. AlphaRag, and ArtCare Foam.
As well we use Diabond and Aluminum. which will make your costs skyrocket.
Fibre need to be hot mounted .

Bob

 

[PhilipRingler]

I'm going to try hot mounting the prints with a regular iron. The only dry mount presses that large in my area (san francisco) are owned by General Graphics and it would be very expensive to have them mount the images.

 

[Shadow Images]

I would heat mount to museum board and back to 3/8 foam board. I find acid free foam board to transfer too much of the wavyness of the board for my taste, especially on very large prints. JMHO

 

[Shadow Images]

I'm going to try hot mounting the prints with a regular iron. The only dry mount presses that large in my area (san francisco) are owned by General Graphics and it would be very expensive to have them mount the images.

Have you checked with local frame shops?

 

[PhilipRingler]

I would heat mount to museum board and back to 3/8 foam board. I find acid free foam board to transfer too much of the wavyness of the board for my taste, especially on very large prints. JMHO

What kind of Archival Museum Board would you reccomend? Is 4 ply O.k.?
Also how do you store these? And is museum board a better approach for collectability purposes?

 

[ann]

IMHO, that large of print needs more than a 4ply board. That isn't much support for such a large print.

Also, using an iron for dry mounting something that size isn't easy either.

Doesn't the school have a dry mount press that you can use?

 

[Bob Carnie]

Using an Iron sound like you are going to open yourself to a whole bunch of whoopass.

I would try to rent time on a framers hot press as Ann suggests.

 

[PhilipRingler]

Using an Iron sound like you are going to open yourself to a whole bunch of whoopass.

I would try to rent time on a framers hot press as Ann suggests.

Hahahaha Yes This whole project has turned out to be a big can of whoopass!
I have struggled and will probably struggle with this project up to the bitter end. But perhaps I could rob a 7-11 to pay for General Graphics to mount my prints$$$$. Unfortunately no school or rental place in the area has a 4'x8' drymounting press.

 

[RobC]

you don't need a 4 x 8 ft press. You can mount it in any press which is large enough to take half its width and do several pressings as you move it up its length and back down the other side.

 

[PBrooks]

Just remember that if you decide to have someone mount the prints on something like sintra, For fiber they will probably also require a mounting on 4ply museum mount first. This is just from personal experience at Dugall in NYC.
PBrooks

 

[Ole]

Maybe you should consider wet mounting to aluminium plates.

 

[PhilipRingler]

Maybe you should consider wet mounting to aluminium plates.

Aluminum is incredibly expensive here. I wish I could!

 

[PhilipRingler]

Just remember that if you decide to have someone mount the prints on something like sintra, For fiber they will probably also require a mounting on 4ply museum mount first. This is just from personal experience at Dugall in NYC.
PBrooks

What exactly is Sintra? This sounds intriguing.:confused:

 

[DKT]

Sintra is PVC compressed into a solid sheet. usually you can get it in sizes up to about 3/8 inch thick, which is what we use where I work. We mount large graphics and photos to the stuff, generally with coldmount adhesives. If it's being produced outside, we spec out a laminate overcoat for the photo as well, to protect the print on display. Sintra is a neat material to work with, it can be used like a sheet of plywood and is very good for mounting to walls or doing profile cutouts on as well. It's drawback is the expense, expect to pay around 100-120 dollars a sheet.

We have also used aluminum, MDF and gatorboard. Gatorboard can offgas over time, so they seal the edges of the board, if it's used in proximity to artifacts. MDF is loaded with all sorts of bad things, but makes a great substrate to mount to, it's only slightly less expensive than Sintra though, and really heavy. Aluminum--generally they mount to that and then wrap the corners by using an overlaminate. in the old days--the photo dept. I work for, made murals in-house with kodak mural paper (fiber) and they used wheat paste to wet mount the paper to plywood. the corners of the paper were folded over the edges and tacked, or stapled, to the back of the plywood. when dry, it was literally tight as a drum. We still have some of these, they're probably 30-40 years old now, and showing their age, but they're not on display anymore. I guess the problem is that most of these adhesives are permanent for one thing (not archival in a conservation sense) and then the substrates are all building products more or less. It could be that you use the conservation matt board as suggested, then use something like Sintra or Gatorboard or whatever as the backing material. There are some products like the microchamber zeolite stuff, that you can coat like a paint onto a surface. It could be that you could make a barrier of sorts between the backing board and the substrate. But then the problem is how to hang it--it's need to be framed in somehow. When you flush mount to one of these other substrates, they're heavy duty enough to just mount that to the wall. Another old-time technique though, again not really "archival", is to mount the print itself to the wall. We did this with fiber murals once, wet mounted them to the walls of a gallery--they looked great, but were totally destroyed on de-installation. I don't know really, how to do it "archivally"...but I hope this gives you some ideas, or maybe some ideas of things not to do...


my opinions only/not my employers.

 

[DKT]

here, this is kinda what I was refering to in terms of the barrier. I'm not sure where you'd get this in the US--probably Conservation Resources Int'l or maybe someplace like TALAS, University Products, or Gaylord Bros.

http://www.conservation-by-design.co.uk/papers/papers22.html

there's also a product called "art-sorb" that is used for humidity buffering that is similar, but not in terms of absorbing offgassing. it's good if the display environment is really humid--you can make a microclimate inside the frame...

my opinions only/not my employers

 

[fdi]

For something that large, you will need use a either a vacuum press or a roller press if you want it to stay mounted for a long time. If you don’t, then don’t bother with archival materials since it will end up bubbling and peeling in a few years anyway. The purpose of the press is two fold, to eliminate all air, and secondly, to fully activate the adhesive. Any pro photo lab or custom frame shop will have a 40x60 inch dry mount press and or 48 inch roller press. Bainbridge artcare foamboard is very archival. You would want to use 3/16 inch and it would definilty need to be supported by the frame and possibly reinforced with another sheet or gatorboard. The other option is to mount it on some 4-ply or 8-ply rag board and then back that up with gatorboard. All of your standard framing components are primarily manufactured at 32x40 inches. When you exceed that dimension your options decrease and your cost increases dramatically. You also start running into issues such as the weight of the glass being to much for the frame, and the frame being too much for the wall. All issues which can be solved but require more knowledge and money.

If you don’t use acrylic, glass, or laminate then don’t worry about archival because atmospheric pollutants and UV-radiation will degrade the print anyway. If you notice the longevity claims for many papers and inks they typically refer to “framed” meaning their claims are based on the material being behind glass.

Cheers,
Mark