Removing dry mounted photographs

[Loose Gravel]

How do you do this? I have a collection of my father's fiberbased photos that are dry mounted to cheap matboard. It was done almost 50 years ago and some of the mats are discolored and they take up too much room, besides. The photos are not of any great value, but I guess I'd feel guilty just throwing them away. If I can reduce the volume, that would be great. (They are 11x14 on 16x20 boards.)

I know that this is possible as a friend of mine had an AA photo redone. The guy that did it kept his technique a bit of a secret, but I think it involved a very high temperature in the dry mount press. I have tried this with some success, but would like to gather as much info as possible before I start.

 

[Jan Pietrzak]

Dear Mr. Gravel

Or, can I call you 'P' for short. You may want to work from a differant direction by disolving the dry mount tissue it self. Flipping back in the back of the brain file 'Dry mount tissue may be disolved with mineral sprits' and yes the fogg just came back in. The trick is to loosen the tissue and remove the print. With out discoloration of the print or killing the workers. (No Smoking allowed). Try some cheap Gin or Vodka on just a small piece of dry mount tissue to see if it works. Or try some 190 proof to see if it will work.

Ok, 'P' good luck and I will talk to you soon. I am making a speed run to NV with Al this weekend.

Jan Pietrzak

 

[Mongo]

If the mat boards are just discolored but aren't causing any degradation in the prints, I'd be tempted to trim the mat board close to the edge of the prints and just re-mount the prints with the existing mat board behind it. The dry mount tissue will probably protect the print from any damage from the mat board; I'd hesitate to break that seal.

If you really want to try unmounting them, you can try putting them into a dry mount press at about 200F for five minutes or so, then try separating the photo from the board. Work slowly. If the photo cools too much before you've got it off of the board, you can either put some release paper between the part of the photo you've separated and the board and put the whole thing back into the press, or you can use a (scrupiously clean) clothes iron to keep the temperature up. (Only consider even thinking about having this process cross you mind if you really don't care if the photos will be damaged. If you do care, I'd leave them on the boards they're on and just cut the boards down close to the edge of the photos. It won't be as pretty, but it's likely to be safer.)

 

[Claire Senft]

Listen to Mongo

As a print is heated and reaches a temperature greater than the melting point of the tissue the corners will pull free of the board. At that point one only has to pull to get ot to release....do not scorch your fingers. Some mount tissue has a melting point that is quite high. You mave have tp go higher than 200ºf...even 250ºF should not cause a problem because it is 200 degrees below papers kindling point. I have never doe this with an RC print. I would be concerned with an RC print that I exceeded its melting point of the plastic..I woukd start at a temp of 150ºF and work upward with RC papers..

 

[127]

In my brief experiments with dry mount, I found RC easier to work with than fibre. Too much heat damaged the surface of the fibre print, while the RC print stood up to a lot more rough handling. I guess it's cause RC is designed to go through those machines, which dry them out in a minute or so - they have to stand the heat (though of course testing is advised... YMMV...)

Ian

 

[Konical]

Good Morning, Ian,

My experience has been the opposite. Fiber paper seems to tolerate too-high temperatures without much problem, but I've damaged RC paper when my tacking iron happened to be set too high. It's my understanding that Seal developed ColorMount tissue to meet the lower temperature requirements of RC paper.

Konical

 

[Donald Miller]

My experience has been the same as Konicals. RC will damage far more easily then fiber.

I might be inclined to try to use a heat gun to remove the mounted prints...perhaps even a portable hair dryer on a high setting would work. My thought is that one could begin heating at an edge and slowly work their way across the print. I think heating in a dry mount press would be difficult because the print would cool rapidly enough to make full removal difficult especially on larger prints.

 

[Jon Shiu]

Hi, I saw this product called Unseal at B&H, unfortunately they don't ship it...
"A special releasing solvent used to remove artwork from various mounting adhesives. It can also be used to clean adhesive residue off artwork or dry mount press parts."

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=details_accessories&A=details&Q=&sku=47233&is=REG

Jon

also Bestine is a solvent sold at art stores

 

[John Koehrer]

You can trim the mount close to the edge of the print & then soak it in actone. this will disolve the adhesive & allow separating the items. This need to be done with good ventilation.

 

[geraldatwork]

I hope in 50 years (I'm 56 and will be long gone) someone doesn't try to attempt some of the previous suggestions to my prints. I would just keep the prints as they are or as suggested trim to the print edge to save space.