What's a good dry mount press?

[Wayne]

I got a Bogen Technal for nothing or next to nothing, from a local newspaper. I dont know much about them, but it does work just fine. I wouldn't hesitate to get another.

 

[Rafal Lukawiecki]

I use a Bogen Technal 560, and the heat could be more even. When I measure it at different points, under a distributing sheet of board to make it more even, it varies up to 9 C at extremes, and it floats some 8 C between cycles. All this means a lot of testing of adhesion, and having to return prints to the press once or twice if they pop, but I do bend them rather severely after mounting. Such strong adhesion helps them cope with very humid display conditions, which I once had to learn to deal with.

I hear that HotPress is one to look out for if you have the funds and a ton of space.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

The temperature fluctuation between cycles is a matter of the thermostat. I measured that on my Seal 210 and got a difference of 6°F between high and low.

 

[RalphLambrecht]

I use 'Seal Colormount'. It really made for RC but it works well for RC and FB.

 

[Ian Grant]

I use 'Seal Colormount'. It really made for RC but it works well for RC and FB.

The problem was that older dry-mounting presses used shellac based tissues which needed high temperature, and until the late 70's or early 80's that was all that was widely available.

With the widespread take up of PE & then RC papers which almost wiped out FB papers there were problems with dry-mounting as the temperatures affected the plastics/resins. So new synthetic tissues were formulated which worked at far lower temperatures, these were PE/RC friendly, however they also work just as well with FB papers.

To answer the OP, my own press is a very old Ademco, from the 40's or 50's but it works fine for both RC & FB papers, and with the modern lower temperature tissues I still use the same high power setting, but for a fraction of the times needed for shellac tissue.

Ian

 

[Paul Goutiere]

A company called Crescent makes a product called "Perfect Mount". http://www.crescentcardboard.com/pig0721.html

The material is very good for heat sensitive materials.

 

[Ian Grant]

Thanks Ralph and Ian. (I didn't mean to hijack the thread). Currently I'm only using FB paper. Initially I assumed since Colormount was for RC somehow it wouldn't work with FB. But I think I will try it now.

I've not used Clormount but the lower temperature tissues I've used for RC papers are just as good for FB, and in fact are designed for use with both.

Ian

 

[RalphLambrecht]

Thanks Ralph and Ian. (I didn't mean to hijack the thread). Currently I'm only using FB paper. Initially I assumed since Colormount was for RC somehow it wouldn't work with FB. But I think I will try it now.

I've used it for 15 years without a single issue.