Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

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Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

Does anyone here bond two sheets of mountboard together, to give them a thicker mount?
If so, I'm interested to know what adhesive you use and best technique for seamless window mounts? (Vacuum press without heat?)
I'm asking because
- I've heard a framer does this, I'm assuming to save money on buying 4+mm boards by the pack.
- His work is apparently seamless
- He is not a sharing kind of framer :roll:
- The PVA I use (Titebond 3) does not dry colourless, but slightly brown
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by JonathanB »

Hi Justin -
Never done this but seems like a lot of work and I think I'd be worried about the effectiveness of the bond and the two boards coming apart. Also, the join would surely show on the bevel? I normally just buy boards by the single sheet from Wessex on the odd occasion I need a thicker board - no need to buy a whole pack. Alternatively, Wessex Fine Art (or a friendly local colleague) will be able to supply the cut mount at a fairly modest cost, I would have thought.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

Thanks Jonathan,
It was the 4mm board that was requested, Nielsen do one by the pack, so one piece meant buying a pack at £250...
I was told that you needed a lupe/magnifier to see the join on it.
My local CMC using framers would cut but not supply, I'm not worried about cutting though, that's a challenge I would enjoy, but not at the Nielsen price.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by prospero »

I've done this with a heat press and even then the join is visible. You get a shiny line. :D

I would think you would get a similar result using white PVA.

Starch paste would probably do it - you'd have to cook it up though and keep it under pressure while drying.


In the old days, mountboard was made like this. When I started off it was graded in 'sheet' thickness. 6-sheet was equivalent
to the 1.5mm(appx) we use today.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by vintage frames »

I've never done any of this, but -
Use Titebond 1 as it dries white and dilute it watery so that it can be painted on with a brush. Then sandwich the boards between two pieces of window glass and then two wooden boards/ worktop pieces. Then lots of weights or if you want to be clever, one of those vacuum clothes storage bags with a fresh dust-bag in your cleaner.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

Prospero,
Its still referred to in the US as 4, 6 and 8 ply. Interestingly if you look at it under a loop you can see the layers.
Maybe the shine is the facing papers and using a solid core board wouldn't have the shine?
Thanks Dermot, I have a vacuum press now, so would probably give that a go, after a quick word with the Hotpress teacher.
"Fresh dust bag in your cleaner"???
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by vintage frames »

If you want a half decent vacuum from your cleaner, then a fresh dust-bag is needed.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

I've stuck bits of mountboard together in the past, but I would not like to try it with really large bits of mountboard.. If you are not expecting to see the join, I think you are unlikely to achieve that, because the surface paper are not the same type of materials as the core material. Considering the time required to do this, I would expect it to be cheaper to buy a sheet of thicker mountboard in the first place.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by prospero »

I once had to match a disco'd board by drymounting the paper. Worked OK but there was just a hint of the tissue on
the bevel. I also laminated some boards with coloured paper to give a fine accent line effect. Again, OK to a point.

I still have most of the roll of Canson paper somewhere. Anyone want any blue? :D
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

I think that most of you already know where I an coming from, because I make it quite clear on a regular basis, that although I specialise in hand finishing, I like quick and easy, but don't think that does not mean the job has to be less than stunning. However, some jobs with an element of difficulty can far to easily become very time consuming and before you know it, all the profit on that particular job has completely disappeared, which amoungst all other things tends to bring a downer up on the day.

I know not everybody thinks like this, but if there is an easier way of doing something that makes you more productive and takes away much of the risk of a job not going smoothly, why aren't we taking it. It's true that thicker mountboard costs more, but that's not your fault, it costs what it costs and why is that a problem. If the customer wants something that's unusual and you have to order the materials specially for that job, surely the price will reflect that and at the end of the day, you can go away feeling happy that you did a good job, without avoidable hassle.

Not everybody will have a really tiny shop and workshop, or a history of health problems like me, but my situation teaches me to work smart and that I have my limits and taking a less demanding way of doing some things will keep you in the game longer. In a few months time I will be 67, I'm a lot weaker than many others, but I have learned how to keep going by adapting to my situation. I no longer employ staff to help me, but I have to manage. I'm very quick to see when doing something one way is not likely to create a smoothly running job, with a reliably worthwhile hourly rate for my time.

In cases like this I would be looking for the easier way of doing this, perhaps this is the smart way to do this and spend the time yo have saved earning money, having moved on quicker on to the next job.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

Justintime wrote:It was the 4mm board that was requested, Nielsen do one by the pack, so one piece meant buying a pack at £250...
That's nuts! £100 would be pushing it, but £250 is crazy. Colourmount do 3mm and 3.2mm boards and Arqadia do 3.5mm boards, why can't you offer those to your customer and save all the bother?
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

I totally agree Mark. It was a bit of a stitch-up, time wise.
Artist brings in a piece framed by a local hand finishing framer, saying the framer is too busy to do one at a time for him, but is happy to give me all of the details of materials, including the Nielsen 4.1mm mount.
Artist won't accept a lesser board, understandably, as the piece looked great with it.
When I priced it at £150, he was aghast, saying that framer had only charged £75.
I requoted twice for that job and more, but was always twice as much apparently.
So when he had enough pieces to frame in one job, the other framer accepted the job.
I have since heard that the other framer makes his 4mm board by laminating sheets together.
Word is that without a lupe, you can't see the joins at all.
I'm thinking maybe he marks out the board and glues close to the bevel but not on it. It doesn't take that long to mark out a board.
Vacuum pressed cold, it would only need 5 to 10 mins to go off.
I have ATG'ed black to white before and then cut the mount. It worked really well, but was probably a lot more forgiving than 2 sheets of white.
It was Teichert Conservation 4.1mm board at £41.14+vat a sheet, minimum pack of 5.
I'm not sure what lesson that framer was trying to teach me, except that he's not the friendly type, a rare breed in my experience so far.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by JFeig »

I have produced up to 16 ply board (approx 4.5 mm) from 100% board for special display projects. I always used wheat starch paste. I would place the "sandwich" in my vacuum press for a while and then let it dry overnight under 6 mm plate glass. When the board was dry, I would mark out the opening and cut through the board with a hand operated mat cutter. It takes about 3-4 cuts to go all the way through.

With a computerized mat cutter you can cut 4 mats to do the job a lot easier by cutting one board at a time by setting the difference of the openings to the thickness of the mat.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

Justintime wrote:When I priced it at £150, he was aghast, saying that framer had only charged £75.
I requoted twice for that job and more, but was always twice as much apparently.
It sounds like you might not havebeen told the whole story about that. Considering the extra work involved in laminating two sheets of mountboard, I'm not sure why the other framer is able to make a sufficient return up on his costs. I think he must be doing something clever that is not ready to tell you about. Both Arqadia and Daler do 2mm mountboards in a very white coloured core, where you can get mountboard colours in their respective ranges that are a pretty much perfect match for the colour of the core and in theory as the mountboard ages these colours should be change significantly with age.

I use one of the old fashioned screw down type dry mounting presses, which exerts a massive amount of pressure and at least in theory may exert enough pressure to squeeze out any excess glue, leading to a fairly invisible join, so maybe this is starting to make a bit more sense, than before. Both Arqadia and Daler would probably be quite a lot cheaper than the more expensive Nielsen Bainbrige boards. So there may be something useful to learn from this, that starts to make more sense after all.

Where the prices you quoted for just the mounts, or everything including the frame, as I'm still trying to get my head around how the other framer is still managing to get a worthwhile profit while being half your price. Arqadia produce an alpha cellulose board with solid colour and it's very smooth surfaced and flat, which should make for an easy surface when joining two sheets together with no visible gaps when joined together. This is Arqadia's 401 to 405 range, which I often have in stock and it is a stunning looking board.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

I think the margin was pretty slim..
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

I wouldn't bet on it. If he's smart enough to bond 2 sheets of mountboard together, I would assume that he's doing framing for a living and a 4mm thick mount is really a bit special, so he's not going to do it for nothing. I still think that he got a clever way of doing this to maintain a worthwhile profit margin.

If he's also doing it as a hand finished job, why would he do it to make virtually nothing. What was the spec for the rest of the job, including the size of the frame? There's something worth learning here. I'm thinking that he's more than likely still getting £30 an hour out of this job and we should be able to figure out how this is being done for the money.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

I'm in.
Frame Size : 660x635
Moulding: R+H PW402 Oak
Finish: Black acrylic, Lime Wax, Shellac
Mount: Nielsen Teichert 4.1mm White
Glass: Waterwhite
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Justintime »

Just to clarify/correct my previous post re the cost, someone has just pointed out that the £41/sheet board I mentioned is for the jumbo size. The standard board is actually £17/sheet..oops..and available per sheet.
I have to accept that this was a newbie mistake, but Nielsen certainly didn't clarify this at the time, water under the bridge, but explains my reluctance to price any lower! :giggle:
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by Not your average framer »

O.K., that makes more sense now and at £17 per sheet for the mountboard, the price sounds it is probably about right, but the idea of bonding two more moderately priced boards together has got me thinking that as an idea there may be some financial sense in this idea in the right situations. Perhaps something to remember for future possibilities.
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Re: Bonding 2 sheets of mountboard together.

Post by prospero »

I realise that it's a customer spec to have a single, thick board, but if I were faced with the job and had a bit of leeway
I would tend toward a std thick board on top a a tiny reveal of 2-3mm thick board to achieve the depth. I think the little 'quirk'
looks nice and not too fussy. You could do the same by 'cartwheeling' bevelled strips of thick board behind a thinner one.

Just a thought - Carry on. :P
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