Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

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Whitewater Gallery
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Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by Whitewater Gallery »

We have been using Lion heavy duty bonding tape to fix plywood artworks into shallow tray frames. Our problem is that 1: if it sticks well it is not easily reversible and 2. Some of the artworks can be quite bent and will fail to stay stuck down (too easily reversible!).

I have tried Bondloc Cyanoacrylate Adhesive but this is not reversible and the Silicone Adhesive takes too long to set.

I would welcome some suggestions please!
Not your average framer
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Re: Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

This can be quite problematic plywood is not always guarranteed to stay flat, a lot of the cheaper plywood grades are only manufactured to be able to stay flat when securely fixted to something else. Top quality plywood also usually has more layers of ply and these can be significntly more stable. Really thin slinney ply distorts and bents more easily, but sometimes this also has more give and is easier to flatten out to stay in place. In general, baltic birch ply will be the best and most stable, but quite a lot of artist like to buy the cheapest. Sometimes they get away with this and sometimes they don't. Sometimes a painting of plywood which has become distorted can be glued flat to another piece of plywood, which has been clamped to a flat surface while the glue sets.

I have only encounted very few plywood boards, which have become distorted and if the distortion is only slight and the resulting gaps are very thin, I have used a gap filling adhesive, when gluing the artwork in toa floater frame. Sometimes this works sort of, but I really don't like doing it and I don't much like the idea of the artwork being permanently fix in to the frame, so that it cannot easily and safely be removed at a later date. Like it or not paintings of plywood which too thin to accept removable fixings can severely limit our availability of course of action whe fixing the artwork in to a frame and sometimes there only effective methods to correct such problems are going to cost the customer extra money to satisfactorily frame the picture as a result. I am never happy about streesing the frame to try and use the frame to pull the piece of plwood back in to being flat at all.

I my opinion fixing a distorted piece of plywood in to the frame is inviting the risk of the frame getting distorted over time and the customer trying to suggest that it was my frame that caused the plywood to distort instead of the other way around.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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prospero
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Re: Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by prospero »

A a flat piece of board is not really suitable for floating and if it were intended to be framed that way the
artist should have fixed it to a suitable support before painting on it. That way it can be attached by screws.
I'm thinking a simple rectangular profile wood frame that is glued to the board. Then it does have to be reversible
as it would in effect be part of the painting. This would also serve to hold the board flat.

However.................

You can do the same after the event and fix it permanently with PVA.
At least the painting+subframe can easily be removed from the floater. :D
I wouldn't agonise to much about altering the artwork unless it were a work of some 'importance'.
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Not your average framer
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Re: Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

I think that fiing it with screws is always the professional thing to do!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Whitewater Gallery
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Re: Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by Whitewater Gallery »

Thanks for the replies.

Currently we float the panel in a tray frame
IMG_0895.jpg
To achieve this we stick it to a spacer and screw the spacer to the tray frame
IMG_0895.jpg
I guess the way forward will be to stick to a sub frame and then the sub frame can be screwed to the spacer so we can then more easily remove should a client want a different colour.

The question then is the best way to stick to the subframe?
Attachments
IMG_0896 2.jpg
Not your average framer
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Re: Fixing Plywood artwork in a tray frame?

Post by Not your average framer »

The sub-frame won't need to be anything special, or expensive, but don't forget that you are only gluing on to the outside layer of plywood. The outside layers of plywood are almost always thinner than all the other layers and therefore it help to has an adequate width of sub-frame to get a sufficient area of glue contact. I'm not suggesting that you go over the top about this, just don't go too much the other way either. When you screw in to the sub-frame it wants to be fixed enough to allow for any strain pulling things in to place.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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