Bevel Tapes

Conservation Issues
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Jayvee
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Bevel Tapes

Post by Jayvee »

Just had a play around with bevel tapes for the first time, they look pretty interesting to be honest!! Got a job in at the moment which I think they would look amazing with, a comic book from the week before I was born!!

Just wondering if these can be used or not? It's the colourmount self adhesive ones in the lion cat.

Colour is black, I'm thinking no due to BWS? Going to be using Peterboro mount board for initial mount ad tru vue con clear glazing.

Comic is staying put in its acid free bag. T hinge that....

John
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Gus »

Excuse my ignorance - what is "BWS" ?????
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Jonny2morsos »

Blue Wool Scale. It is a measure of lightfastness. Just google for more info.
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Gus »

Thank you. It's the TLA that got me! I am familiar with the scale through the FATG study guide.
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by prospero »

What's a TLA? :roll:
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Gus »

Three Letter Acronym :giggle:
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by prospero »

Oh you do feel a fool dontcha? :lol: :oops: :lol:
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by kev@frames »

"high BWS doesn’t provide greater protection to the artwork – it is purely aesthetic." according to mary evans of the fine art trade guild who posted on this subject in the BWS on Mountboards thread in this same outgassing section.
Read the thread, carefully, its enlightening in more ways than it seems at first glance.

purely aesthetic = no bearing on conservation properties. all colourmount boards have a bws number, but apparently only conservation boards are required to show a bws number (by the fatg). No mention of bevel tapes standards for being "conservation".

So would someone from the fatg like to chip in and comment on colourmount self adhesive bevel tapes?
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Not your average framer »

There are various self adhesive tapes which are claimed to be conservation quality products due to their alkaline pH rating, but the ph rating is only part of the story. Sorry to disappoint anyone, even when a self adhesive product is based upon an acrylic polymer, it still needs something added to the formulation to impart self adhesive properities to the acrylic polymer.

That something which needs to be added is likely to be a plasticiser and will contain volatile elements which will outgass over time until the material ceases to have it's self adhesive characteristics. It's a fairly safe bet that the elements which "out-gas" will not be classified as being conservation friendly, due to the fact that these volatile elements are are unlikely to be inert, but are generally reactive in their characteristic properties. This does not mean that we should not use such tapes, but we can't tell the customer that they comply with any recognised conservation standards, because they don't.

There is still the other option of covering the bevel with conservation quality paper and painting the bevel with artist quality acrylic paint, or gouache to ensure that only conservation quality materials are used.

BTW, all self adhesive materials will fail eventually. It's only a matter of time!
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by prospero »

There's an interesting point here.

'Conservation Quality'

As Mark points out, many things advertised as such will deteriorate. Sooner or later. Nothing is truly permanent.
Adhesives will fail, pigments will fade, paper will break down. But the crucial point is, will it damage the artwork in this process? Mounts can be replaced. After 20 years or 200 years - makes no difference. But as long as the artwork remains unaffected, then they have fulfilled the claim.

(The fabric of some artwork will fail well below any conservation standards, but that's another story and not the framers problem. :P )

The bevel tape that is the subject of this thread may fade or the glue might fail and it peels off. A PITA certainly and not a desirable thing, but as long it doesn't damage the art it really ought to deserve the conservation quality tag. I've seen watercolours that have mounts that have gone a nice brown colour and virtually rotted away, but the paintings had not a mark on them. Good as the day they were painted. So from any standpoint the manky mount did it's job to conservation standard.

IMHO good mounting practices are far more crucial in the long term preservation of art than the quality of materials.

It's nice to think that your mounts will look nice and fresh for years to come, but that is purely an aesthetic thing. Nothing to do with the welfare of the art.

Get my drift? :)
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Not your average framer »

I would agree with Prospero, but I think that it is important the want we tell a customer regarding the methods and materials we are using are credible in both technical and legal aspects.

Where we have assessed a minor compromise as being reasonable, justified and the best practical conservation option under the prevailling circumstances, then we should be prepared to aquaint the customer with a full explaination.

There has been an occassion when I have agreed with a customer to dry mount an antique print which is falling apart as the best option for the customers budget and their intended outcome. It has prevented disintegration on the print and enable them to continue future enjoyment of the print, but it could never be described as "best practice". However, withing the limits of the customers budget the principle behind the action was one of preservation. Unfortunately not all the methods and materials employed could be described as of recognised conservation quality.
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by kev@frames »

if your staff at the shop counter are any giod they will quickly have gathered the desired outcome and the item will be framed appropriately, regardless of any promulgated "standard" of "conservation".

But you shouldn't need to tell the customer anything about the materials. most of us are using acid free white core and at least acid free barrier and neutral ph backing boards already in our day to day custom framing work, and if we take the bother to suggest uv filtering glass where appropriate, we can safely assume that we have given the framed item a breather for 20 years before someone might need to re-evaluate its conservation-worthiness, or not.

I don't ask a plumber how long the plastic pipe will last that he's replacing the copper pipe in my house with, that replaced the lead pipe that the guy before did. But I should do because Its in a "conservation area". Tradesmen just use the up to date materials, and most framers are the same. There are basic norms in the retail framing business and thats white core (which is usually acid free/conservation), and a working knowledge about UV filtering glass.

Its not rocket science. its just a job. its not even a difficult job to do right. and to do it right all you have to do is make sure that anything you do, within reason, can be undone. sorted.

most jobbing framers doing work for the general public take it as given that the customer expects it to look good, last a long time before it needs framing again (eg a decade or three, not centuries). Most customers are not the uneducated pillocks that some art-ponce framers would believe (or like them to be).
Mister public these days doesn't need, or want "educating", or lectures on standards, zeolites or blue wool scales. He just wants his picture on the wall, looking nice for the forseeable future.
Thats what they pay for, thats their expectation.

Then there is the danger of smartarses who have been in the business ten minutes posting pictures of work that other framers did twenty years ago in "the good bad and ugly" section, and rattling on about what an awful job this clown did.
Well if that clown hadn't done it that way, smug git, it probably wouldn't have come into your place for re-framing, would it. so stfu, your colleague in the business 20 years ago did you a favour.

Of course these days you listen to some people and if they had their conservation way every jack vettriano print, and every similar art group churn-out ever produced would still be with us in prime condition, japanese hinges, conservation glass, zeolite laden mats, stainless steel wire and frame bumpers included in a hundred years time. oh the joy of that for our descendents :(

if the guy wants black bevels, give him black bevels.
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Not your average framer »

What I was trying to say is that, when we agree to with the customer to conservation frame their artwork and there is anything used within the framed package which has to be a compromise and is not fully conservation quality, (such as deep bevel tape), then we should be prepared to cover ourselves at explain this.

Personally, I don't consider the acrylic adhesive on these tapes to be a very significant threat, so such a small compromise could be discussed with the customer, who can given the option of using them or not, within their otherwise conservation framing requirement.
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Steve N »

Very well said Kev :clap: , it can get very anal on here sometimes :oops:
Jayvee wrote:
Comic is staying put in its acid free bag. T hinge that....

John
So as Kev said you could paint the bevels black or whateve colour you want as it's not going to touch the comic anyway :sweating:
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by kev@frames »

."...anything used within the framed package which has to be a compromise and is not fully conservation quality, (such as deep bevel tape), then we should be prepared to cover ourselves at explain this."

why?
what is there to cover yourself about if you frame something that is completely reversible and no more harm is going to come to the artwork than if it were not in your frame. How can you possibkly be doing anything "wrong" that requires explanation or covering yourself against?

If you think you are doing something that needs covering yourself, then don't do it in the first place.

It shouldn't be necessary if you already know the customers expectation. decorative, conservation or compromise. it'll be taken as read that if you are any good at your job you will frameit appropriately.
if my counter staff have to waste two hours a day explaining every dertail to every customer thats 10 hours a week, over 500 hours a year of wages that could have gone into something else.

Just do the jobs to the right spec in the first place, if budget is paramount importance to the customer then that is the right spec, end of. There is no "covering yourself" required.

there is no need to over complicate order taking, unless you have a lot of time on your hands, or can't think of better things to spend a few thousand a year of staff overheads on.

Here's an idea: just spend that on default materials instead, and save a lot of time and bother at the shop counter, and don't lose any sleep on "covering yourself".
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Roboframer »

I don't buy self adhesive bevel tapes and nor do I buy pre-bevelled strips to wrap them around.

I used to buy Nielsen-Bainbridge artcare 'bevelled accents' which are "Bloody Expensive" (ex VAT) for a box of four 100x10mm strips, but they only come in about 20 colours from the artcare range.

So, seeing as my default backing board is 5mm artcare foam board and my default mountboard is artcare too ..... and seeing as, like most framers, I always have lots of useless skinny offcuts that get tossed - I don't toss them any more. I bevel the foam board strips and I peel the surface paper off the mount board strips ...... and I make 'bevelled accents' in the whole artcare pallete - a couple or three hundred colours.

Money for nuthin' ........ :music:
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Not your average framer »

Roboframer wrote:Money for nuthin'
And really stunning to look at!

I use a lot less Neilsen Bainbridge boards than I once did, but I would still buy NB for a good source of easy to peel off colour papers.

IMHO, the colour papers on NB boards are far easier to peel that on any other boards I have used!

Money for nuthin? Well almost!
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Roboframer »

From the artcare 'fresh pop' range - don't have the colour name/ref to hand, but a pretty scary red.
bevel deep wrapped red.jpg
bevel deep wrapped red.jpg (80.69 KiB) Viewed 28387 times
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Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Roboframer »

Not your average framer wrote:IMHO, the colour papers on NB boards are far easier to peel than on any other boards I have used!
Agree! But another way to remove these surface papers is to lay the offcuts in a big shallow tray of water, let them delaminate and then peg/lay them out to dry.
Roboframer

Re: Bevel Tapes

Post by Roboframer »

That loud red bit is about 16x8" but is priced by the glass size, which is about 23x15" @ £4 per foot.

So, £25+ rescued from the bin? Can't be bad.
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