Mounting Posters and inexpensive artwork

[NealG]

Good Morning

Some insight/advice please

Been framing commercially for couple of years now
Mainly conservation techniques however i would like to be able to be more cost efficient when mounting posters and inexpensive art

I am considering buying a hot pressing (yet to reseach nor do I have a any practical experience on one )

I’d like to be able to mount various mediums inc fine art papers and canvas on various backings including 2mm boards or MDF

Would like to ask, what would the be best manual option, prehaps self advise boards or using a mounting glue with a roller or and would an investment in a hot press hugely improve the overall quality or just speed ?

Many products out there and it would be good to hear from those with experience

Thanks

Neal

[prospero]

Self-adhesive boards + roller will work, but only up to a point... You can bet your boots you'll get a few comebacks with posters
that have developed 'bumps'. The fact is, you simply cannot evert enough even force with a hand roller to form a reliable
permanent bond. With posters, which tend to be large, the problem is magnified. And once the surface has developed a bump
it can be a problem to flatten it. The surface area of the bump will be bigger than than the area of the 'hole' it came out of.
Smoothing it down is likely to create a sharp half-moon crease.
It's fine for temporary jobs but long-term it will fail sooner or later. Same with spray glues and these are messy and not a little
hazardous to health. I'm all for finding the easy way but s/a boards are not it.
A roller press would be better, but you may as well buy a vac press and use heat-activated tissue/film.
This will also give you the option of laminating so you can frame them without glass.

[JFeig]

You have not stated a target for a price per sq m. This includes the mount board as well as the adhesive. We also do not know your cost of labour and overhead costs.

The most "cost effective" method of mounting is the wet adhesive process. It has drawbacks that have been mostly overcome with modern adhesives such as dry mounting and roller adhesives.

As such there are limitations to the "minimal viable cost" solution for you. What will this "reduced cost" approach do to your overall profit margin? Will the increase in sales be worth it? The cost of adhesive films, roller compression and heat activated, have risen over the years.

As far as I know "wet adhesives" are only used in automated mass production situations such as in the manufacture of mount boards and in the manufacture of the toy industry for game boards. It requires a pricy investment in equipment vs what I used years ago, a basic vacuum press. There is also the drawback of drying time.

[Justintime]

I suggest sending a PM to Steve Goodall in this group. He is the (retired) trainer for Hotpress and Drytac machines. He'll be able to give you the benefits and downsides to both depending on exactly what you intend on mounting. It would also be worth getting hold of a copy of "The Mounting and Laminating Handbook" by Chris A. Paschke.

[NealG]

Thanks for your feedback much appreciated

Noted re bubbling and have seen it myself,would a nice piece of 2 or 3mm float right on top of the print (no spacer) not keep it flat or at least help ?

Project is for “affordable” reproduction art to hang in offices,low volume, high perceived value.
My gut says vacuum press is the right way and will be a great addition to my workshop,the challenge is I have the job and want to crack on with it, I may have to outsource the mounting to ensure good quality but would prefer to stay busy, not spend the money and do it myself !

Neal

[Justintime]

Ok, well the main thing to note with a Hotpress is that you cannot mount cheap disublimated prints/maps as the inks blur with heat. Other than that it is a pretty simple process to learn. It's not really a case of ensuring good quality mounting, it's either done right or start again in my experience. Mistakes can happen but once you know how to do it you'll be away, really not very much training involved. Most of us could show you in a quick 10 minute zoom call. Wessex is the place to buy the rolls of adhesive and laminates.

[vintage frames]

Many years ago when I had a retail shop, we used a hand roll cold laminator to stick posters down on to pulp board, and then close framed them for resale.
We sold lots.

Ebay has some cheap affordable cold laminators and Lion sell the pulp board.

[NTG999]

I'm interested in this, I use a Brayer roller and then weight down flat under a heavy 25mm MDF board for 24 hours, on occasion I have had a bubble raise. Would one of help?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/281751647663 ... media=MORE

[vintage frames]

I think the term now used is a 'cold roll laminator'.
This is where the roll of adhesive film is mounted above the rollers and is fed into the machine as the rollers are turned.
Something like this one -
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/27659441825 ... 5LKoae-ZQ

[NealG]

Thanks once again and especially for your kind offer of a zoom.
Neal

[prospero]

Thanks for your feedback much appreciated

Noted re bubbling and have seen it myself,would a nice piece of 2 or 3mm float right on top of the print (no spacer) not keep it flat or at least help ?

You can be forgiven for thinking so, but it won't win if a bubble decides to erupt.

[Richard Photofusion]

We had both a vacuum hotpress and a roller laminator. For what you're doing (volume, speed, inexpensive), I'd go with the laminator (we got rid of our heatpress, as we couldn't use it for mounting resin coated materials to ACM, aluminium or PVC).

[NTG999]

I'm still trying to understand this, I have used self adhesive boards, I use the Larson Juhl ones because (rightly or wrongly) they appear smooth and the most sticky. I frame very ordinary artwork and get in polyester canvases in a tube bought online that don't have enough room around the edges to put on stretcher bars, dry mounting seems ideal but they do lift and bubble. I do roll with as much pressure as I can with a Brayer roller but that still doesn't seem enough. I don't mind buying a roller laminator if that will solve the issue or am I wasting my time?
Good idea to ask Steve Goodall, I dealt with him at Wessex

[Richard Photofusion]

In the last decade, I've only bought one case of precoated self adhesive substrate. Everything else*, I floodcoat from rolls of (from memory) Drytac ultratac self wound film. Until this year, my mounting studios have had fair to excessive amounts of bright window light raking across them, as well as temperature swings. The rolls of adhesive had an effective 6-18month shelf life span. (we're now in a deep basement, and the rolls are much happier).

The canvases in a tube might be the problem - lacking any sort of dimensional stability?

*DiBond, Forex®, Kapamount or museum board. When processing in a roller laminator, less pressure is actually better than more!