The Framers Forum

Started using a JM26 recently and bought a number of acrylic panels - reasonably small sizes for postcards - I'm using fynart adhesive.
Youtube has been useful for undertsanding the process.

I'm using an acrylic cleaner and anti-static roller so I know the surfaces clean but I am seeing an issue that is frustrating - basically when viewing the image through the front of the acrylic block, it looks like the adhesive isnt invisible. Could it be the pressure is all wrong? Any advice would be welcome.

Are you putting the 'fynart adhesive' (I used to use the stuff from D&J Simons, cystal clear or something) on the the artwork first , not the acrylic blocks, if you do it the other way round, you will get this problem, or if you try to do the whole job in one go,
So stick the adhesive to the artwork first, then reset the rollers and then stick the artwork to the block

I'm only going to say I used to offer the acrylic block option, I hated doing it, the whole thing was too much hassle. What I'm saying is I've been there and I understand the frustration

Life is too short, if (and it's very seldom) that someone does ask for it I outsource it to a local sign company.

Yes, I'm getting old and grumpy

Thanks for your replies- yes I’ve been doing the picture first then the acrylic, resetting the rollers in the correct order. (I like the idea of doing this type of work, particularly useful for a customer who has had the same image framed and mounted in several different sizes- the acrylic block is used for a paperweight).

The clarity I’m after should be achievable and my patient approach should get the desired result but if it’s a case of practice then I’ll persevere - if I am using too little pressure I can experiment with that too. Perhaps another look at the drytac YouTube videos might help

If the art work is postcards, then the texture of the paper/card may be the problem. When you apply the adhesive to the card, while still with the release liner on top, is the surface slightly mottled, like orange peel? That could be the problem. If you have a ready stock of sacrificial postcards, you could try upping the pressure, though on anything larger, I'd be fairly sure it would likely fail, with excess pressure.

Post heating the reverse might help to reduce visibility.

Postcards sound a bit on the thick side and much less easy to process. Way back when perspex blocks were a new thing, one of the suplier's gave me a couple of small samples, which I decided to try. I thought it would be nice, easy and fairly straight forward, but it was not! I have not tried any since, do you need to get trained to do these?

II don't you, but I guess that there must have been something which I needed to know, but I suppose that I did not know! You see lots of photos on glass blocks in photographer's shp windows, is this a know how thing? It never worked for me at all. I have a photographer friend down the street, so I don't like to tread on his toes and I leave much of this sort of thing to him. He gets all this sort of this done by the photo lab who do all his photo processing.

I guess that it's too much hassle to bother with!

Thanks again for your comments. My son is a photography student so part of his course work is using different media to display his photos.
The problem is definitely with the ‘attaching’ to the acrylic block. I have a fair supply in different sizes and thicknesses so I guess it’ll be trial and error until I find an acceptable solution. Thanks again