Mount board thicknesses

[super_claret]

It would seem that 1400 micron or 1.4mm mount board is the most popular but when I visit galleries and look at most of their mounts, they all look quite a bit thicker than 1400micron. In fact I would guess that they are 3-4mm thick. What exactly is considered to be the normal thickness for mount boards when framing A3 and A2 prints? I'm trying to stick to conservation standards...are there any minimum thicknesses for mounts?

Thanks in advance

[prospero]

When I were a lad....

Mountboard thickness was graded in 'sheets'. It' was a throwback to the time when thin sheets were glued together
to make thick board. The stuff sold in art shops was mostly 4-sheet. About a millimetre thick. Framer's packs were
6-sheet. About the same as what most boards are now. Next up was 8-sheet. About 2mm. Not available in so many
colours though. Same today. I've also had 10-sheet and 12-sheet. Nowadays the term 'sheet' is all but obsolete.

Most mounts today are the std 1.4mm and 2mm. A few 3mm ones, but they aren't very popular as they are hard to
cut on a manual cutter.

Minimum thickness? Depends on the item to be mounted and the size.

[David McCormack]

I'm trying to stick to conservation standards...are there any minimum thicknesses for mounts?

FATG conservation standards say 1100 microns is the minimum thickness required for both windows and undermounts so 1.4mm is fine if you want to work to those standards. If you try some 2mm board you will be surprised at how that extra 0.6mm makes a difference to the thickness of the bevel. I use a manual cutter and have never tried anything thicker than 2mm and find 2mm thick enough.

There are other ways to get a thick bevel and that would be wrapped foamboard. I've never tried this but they do look good and often when you see thick bevels in posh galleries they are wrapped foamboard. PDF from LION.....

how to do mount bevel wrapping.pdf

(695.51 KiB) Downloaded 236 times

[Not your average framer]

I don't do much thicker mountboard at the moment, no particular reason, but I guess that I need to offer it more often. However I do like the look that you get with 2mm mountboard. It's not massively thicker, but customers definitely have no trouble it noticing the difference.

There used to be a lady in Plymouth who sold prints and used 2mm mountboard as her standard mountboard for everything and she reckoned that more people buy prints mounted in 2mm mountboard. I'm not saying that the lady is no longer there, I just haven't been there since opening my shop 12 years ago as I no longer have the time to go there.

I bought a big box of pre-bevelled foamboard strips from Lion quite a long time ago and have not used any of it at all. I guess that I need to do something about making some samples before long and see if I can stir up a little bit of customer interest. My original wrapped bevel samples got put in the back room when moving the front of the shop around and haven't been seen since, but deep bevel mounts wrapped in Khardi papers from Nepal can look very striking on deep wrapped mounts.

[Roboframer]

I never really got on with thicker than 1.5mm pre-CMC - by the time I'd got the blade depth and the start and end of cut stops set right, the blade would be blunt and a new one would not cut the same as the last cut on the old one, then it would all have to be reset back to normal board anyway.

Ideally you would have one mountcutter per board thickness, or one (quickly changed) cutter bar/cutting head assembly, this has been partly addressed with blade magazines on the keencut futura, something the Fletcher always had, well, had a looooong time before keencut copied them anyway - problem still only partly addressed though.

I did like deep wrapped bevels though, and still do and the best thing about them for me is that they are made from skinny strips of foam board and mount board (surface paper peeled off) that would otherwise be tossed, money for wastage, no need to buy a thing unless you want something other than just colour. We use other stuff besides mountboard surface paper, like ribbon, various fabrics and Japanese tissue. We also gild them.

As for conservation, the FATG may state 1100 microns is the minimum but that would not work for a large pastel, or a large anything really ...... and who makes 1100 micron boards (in more than one or two colours) anyway? The standard should be whatever thickness guarantees no contact with the glazing - that is the distance that should be addressed, the air gap.

[prospero]

Cutting 2mm board is not really a problem on a manual cutter. You do have to have quite a lot of
blade out. More than you would think. And you need to subtract about 2mm from the near production stop
to get the corners to meet. So if cutting a 70mm margin, set it to 68. The far one will always read true as the
blade reaches further. (think about it). Anything thicker and you are in a different league. 3mm board needs
2 or even 3 passes with the blade. I've done it, but it's hard work.

[Not your average framer]

I've noticed that not all makes of board cut as well as each other, when it comes to thicker mountboard and I think that also applies to some extent to different mount cutters and your choice of blades and blade thicknesses. I'm not particularly into cutting really thick mountboard myself. I can do it, but much of the time the wastage which is still quite expensive is not all that useful.

It just takes up valuable space and still needs to be the right colour and of adequate size for the next customer wanting that thickness of mountboard. On the other hand making your own deep bevel accents using pre-mitred foamboard strips is relatively easy and if you use Roboframers technique of stripping the coloured face papers from left over mountboard scraps, this is a technique that we can all do and I used to do this myself until a few years ago.

If you are not particularly into cutting thicker mounts, then this is a technique that will give your all the advantages of extra thick mounts, while avoiding a certain amount of the extra hassle. I've currently fallen behind with what I've been offering my customers as alternatives to standard thickness mounts, while going through a difficult patch with my health problems and have been running too much on auto pilot, instead of offering things like this. Fortunately I am getting a bit better, since about six months ago and need to get back into some things like deep bevels again.

I never did a lot of deep bevels, but they do add a little extra to your bottom line and give you extra creative options at the same time. Originally, I used to cut my own bevelled strips from 5mm foamboard, but with my limited space, this was not the ideal solution. So I bought the pre-bevelled foamboard strips and then was quite poorly for a few months and never got around to doing anything about it. I guess this thread has helped me to remember that it's time I started to think about this again.

[Roboframer]

"much of the time the wastage which is still quite expensive is not all that useful"

Wastage, by definition could or even should, be tossed, it's paid for already and if you don't toss it, it's not wastage, is it!

If your pricing is correct, in theory, the fall-out from a 44x32" mount with a 1" border (so the fall out would be 42x30") could go in the bin! In practice It won't of course but we're all guilty, some more than others, of hoarding stuff which takes space that will actually generate more money if you toss it!

"It just takes up valuable space and still needs to be the right colour and of adequate size for the next customer wanting that thickness of mountboard"

For me it goes back where it came from if it is useful, so the space was already allocated for the full sheet that it came from. If it's less useful - and that would be A3-A4, it goes in the offcut tote box, which gets culled now and again, below A4, out it goes.

As for colour and size, I don't worry about that unless I choose to. Only certain colours are offered in thicker boards but I offer them in any colour whatsoever by bonding two boards together (with wheat starch paste) - the boards are cut to size first so the offcuts are standard thickness (and only kept if above applies anyway)

This makes the thickness 2.8mm but with a CMC it doesn't matter, just tell it! But it is do-able manually and there is also the option of using a thinner board if you wanted to make it 2 or 2.2mm. A bit of a faff, maybe ... but you'll never have to order anything specific and like anything else, once you get good at it ............................ !!

And it's not a case of "the next customer wanting that thickness of mountboard" It's a case of the next customer it can be sold to.

.