Papercut inbetween two glass

[Mr Bevel]

Hello. A customer has brought in one of those very delicate round-ish (16" diameter), silloette-type, black paper-cut pieces and they want it sandwiched inbetween two pieces of glass and for it to be 'free standing' on a mantle-piece with no border or frame. The question is - do clips exist to hold two bits of glass together? Or can anyone think of any other way of holding two bits of glass together? As it is the only way of making it stand I can think of is to router out a channel say 4mm wide on a base bit of wood and then 'wedge' the two bits of glass in. Is there a particular glue which works best on glass - just tiny specks to hold the paper in place? Any ideas appreciated.

[Roboframer]

The thought of free-standing glass is a bit scary to me, I'd suggest acrylic, with the edges and corners rounded off.

Wedging in to a wooden platform or plinth would be good, the deeper the better, backed up with adhesive.

You could make a nice neat bead of suitable D.A.M. (Don't Ask Me) adhesive by scoring just 1mm of the protective paper away from the edges of one sheet of acrylic, applying the adhesive and when it's gone off so's it's pretty solid but still sticky, removing the rest of the protective paper and then laying the other sheet on to it ..... as long as it remains nice and neat and doesn't squidge in to something that doesn't look too clever on the inside; if it squidges out you could just sand it off when dry/hardened.

Just a few tiny strategically placed blobs of something that dries clear would do for holding the papercut in place, on one side only of course.

[Not your average framer]

I would not use glue, because it will probably be visible, but here's an idea you can try with an odd scrap of paper, before using it on the real paper cut.

Lightly spray one side of a test piece of with hair spray and let it dry. The hairspray should be virtually invisible.

Now here's the plan....Hairspray is designed to wash out when you wash your hair, so it must be water soluble.

Now breathe onto the glass to mist up the surface and position the test piece of paper onto the misted surface of the glass. The moisture on the glass should reactivate the hairspray and still the paper into position.

I've never tried it, but I suspect that it will hold it in position and once the two piece of glass are assembled together, it should stay in place!

[stcstc]

i do free standing things often normally with 2 bits of diamond polished acrylic

and a pair of these


http://www.kdshop.it/kunstduengerShop/p ... able_16385#

[Roboframer]

Like those!

I'd be wary of spraying the whole thing, or even part of it, with anything, let alone something that is designed to harden/stiffen when dry and not designed to bond to a different surface; it starts off wet anyway and could make the whole thing contract and/or curl up.

A few weeny weeny blobs of adhesive may be visible, if you looked hard enough, and maybe you'd only need one, central, the pressure from the glazing would do the rest ... OK, maybe it could pivot .... two then, left/right or top/bottom. I'm guessing the customer is only interested in the effect; not viewing either side?

[Not your average framer]

I can of hairspray is one of the items I already have in my workshop. It gets used to stop petals from falling off from framed flowers, etc. A light dusting is essentially invisible!

At one time hairspray used to be used instead to size old engravings before hand tinting them with watercolour paint. It saved a lot of time and had the desired effect of reducing absorption problems in the paper, so that the paint did not spread beyond where you wanted it.

[Mr Bevel]

Thanks for the comments. Those little clip things on that web site look quite good. When you say 'diamond polished acrylic' stcstc - how thick is this and where would I get it from? The gap on those clip things is 8mm which is pretty thick. The hairspray is worth investigating in general.

[stcstc]

no the max is 8mm, there is a grub screw, i have used them with 4mm glass before


depending on size of piece, use 2 3mm pieces.

diamond polishing is a edge polishing, if you go to local sign manufacturers they should be able to help you

[Mr Bevel]

Stcstc.
Do you think there would be enough pressure to hold the papercut if the size was 400 x 540mm?

[stcstc]

Not the desktop type no they are for much smaller, the standoff types yea no problems

[prospero]

http://www.sjcrafts.co.uk/



No frame. No clips. Free standing. Of course it's not reversible.

[Mr Bevel]

Not sure what you mean about the 'standoff' types stc?.
Prospero - that place looks useful - for future, thanks.

[stcstc]

this kinda thing, there are tons of variations

http://ausignpro.com.au/sign%20pictures ... oard-2.jpg

[Tim]

As per Prospero's remarks, as a kid I remember having a 'toy' called Plasticraft. It did the same thing - encased stuff in resin, and came with coloured dyes and stuff. I still have a pair of cufflinks I made around 40 years ago out of old silver threepenny bits.......why can't kids have toys like that these days.

[prospero]

Hey Tim. You should be able to extract the DNA and clone them by now.

I had one of those kits come to think of it.... The trick if I remember is to not use too much at once but build up layers. It gets hot as it cures and you have to watch out for air bubbles. You should smooth any rough bits off when it's set and polish it up. Done right it looks very good and the resin is as tough as old boots.