mounting cigarette cards

[Trinity]

New to framing. I've a pre loved Wizard and have tonight managed to position 25 horizontal and 13 vertical cards. So far so good. But, can anyone tell me the best way to position the cards on the undermount so when I place the apertures on top nothing moves and all are central. The cards are next to nil value. I'd just pencil round the opening and glue but is there a better way please.

[Roboframer]

Welcome to the forum Trinity.

New to framing and you have a CMC - WOW!

Well, OK - use the CMC, do you have an embossing head/tool? (Isn't the wizard one called a 'de-bossing' tool)?

If you've saved your design, call it back up and make each aperture the exact size of the cards, plus 1mm. Put your undermount in and emboss the shapes.

If you don't have that head/tool - fine, set your blade depth to just ever-so-lightly score the undermount.

If you used the undermount as a slip mat you'd also get a result, but the scored shapes would be the aperture size, (as they would if you pencilled around each opening) which is smaller than the card, by making it 1mm larger you'd be able to place each card WITHIN the embossed/scored rectangle.

But you still have to fix each card in place within each embossed/scored rectangle, so here's another idea......

Cut THREE multiple aperture mounts - the apertures in the bottom two are JUUUUUUUUUST smaller than than the cards, the top one is JUUUUUST slightly smaller still (well, you already have that)

Tape and glue one of the bottom two to your undermount, bevels up - drop a card into each aperture. Fix the next one over it, bevels down - this will form a 'V' for each card to sit in. Fix your top mount over the whole thing.

No adhesive on the cards at all, and regardless of value, it's easy - and the time saved will outweigh the cost of the extra two mounts. The two inner mounts do need to be WELL stuck together around each aperture though.

[Trinity]

Thanks for your assistance. Having just measured the card size with my "snap-on" digital vernier caliper gauge I'd confess to being overtooled, as always. But no debossing tool I'm afraid.
Your 3 card trick appeals. I'm still at the dry land fishing stage ie practicing casting without actually cutting (to mix metaphors). Up to now I've been quite chuffed to be able to size to a mm, and even though I can type in say 29.5mm I just presume it'll cut to a half mm, as in JUUUUST.Now, around each picture of the dickie bird is a white border, not quite equal, but the images are a constant size. Is there a convention as to whether you show / not show any border beneath the top mount?
Mr. Snap-on tells me the card is 70.06 - say again 70 x 35mm so the bottom two are going to be cut to 69.5 x 34.5mm (or 69 x 34 if you think better), I'm going to flip them to create a v into which the card will sit - like a bird in a cage, so to speak.
I'm then going to tape and glue the two together, making sure it's well stuck around the aperture. 2 points of interest here:
what tape and where
what glue how and where.
I'm then going to cut the top mat apertures 69 x 34 (poss 68.5 x 33.5) and fix it on top. I'm going to then hold it up to admire it and all the birds will probably fly away, landing on the floor. As you may tell framing is still fun for me. I'd appreciate your review of my understanding and help on the tape and glue bit if you're prepared to stick with it. Regards.

[Merlin]

Hi Trinity

You seem well tooled up for a beginner. CMC and vernier calipers.

The procedure John (Robo) described works very well indeed.

Through my Web Site we cut hundreds of Cigarette Card mounts per year for major resellers.
The same question crops up time and again. Especially for those unique Ltd Eds and Collector cards - "How do I fix them into place?". Bearing in mind that everything you do to these 'special' cards must be totally reversible. That is NO glue or tape.

Another technique that is proving very successful is as follows - using your own measurements.

1. Cut the top mount to that you get an overlap all round the card. In your case 68.5mm x 33.5mm.
2. I do not know what CMC you have. On the Valiani we have something called 'Concentric Circles' - this produces a second cut line around the position of the Original cut line. In your case 0.75mm increase, to give you the 70mm x 35mm Exact card size.
3. Adjust your CMC blade depth so that is just scores the surface paper. Cut your second or Undermount.
4. With a blade peel away this cut out. This will leave you with a rectangular recessed box which your cigarette card should fit snuggly into. This can be quite time consuming if you have a 50 aperture mount.
5. Put Double Sided Tape on the remaining web of the undermount.
6. Place the card into the recess and fit the top mount.

Job Done. Your cigarette card is not held in place by the top mount.

The technique works very well if you want to see both side of the cigarette card

One of the many techniques that is a lot quicker to show than to explain.

[Roboframer]

Regards showing a border, I generaly don't - they are tiny and the white bevel of the mount replaces them - (unless you put a slip/fillet around each aperture - which is lots of fun) but sometimes there is provenance on those tiny borders, in which case I might encapsulate them and cut the aperture to show the whole card. That's another no-adhesive method I like anyway - especially for see-both-sides mounts.

Aperture sizes? - experiment on offcuts, the card needs to sit in the bevel without falling through; it should be almost flush with the opening (widest side) Whatever size that is, cut another the same and fix. You could leave it at that - it works for CDs and records, but then you'd not have bevels showing - so just make the visible mount apertures a fraction smaller - they could be the exact same size, but lining them up would be a pain.

Use glue along the 'bars' between the apertures (is there a real word for those)? just a thin bead - PVA - wood glue - even starch paste - only apply double sided tape in a few places around the extremities - just to hold it all in place while the glue dries (under weight)

Self adhesive tape can give in time, especially if it's not burnished on, and you can't do that - well, you can, but only on one side of it. Plus it remains sticky for ages and SHOULD anything slip, it's best it slips on to something that has dried rock hard and not something still sticky, which costs more to boot!

I think I like JC's method too!

[Trinity]

Thanks to both John and JC for two very helpful solutions. With yours John my mind tells me that the mount will stand proud of card by the thickness of the 2nd / middle layer rather than sit flush on it as JC's, which does look to involve considerably more time with 50 apertures. I can but try both, Friday evening and on prototypes with less apertures. I'll let you know how I get on and look forward to linking up in the future.
Bars is now my adopted term. In a window - astragals.

[Roboframer]

The 'V' method will save some time but use more materials, the 'peel-away-the-scored-apertures method saves materials but you still have to manually do that.

You could still just 'T' hinge them all, especially if you have scored/embossed the undermount to make positioning a doddle - wouldn't take any longer than peeling the surface layer(s) away.

[kev@frames]

acid free stamp hinges do the job, quick, simple, removable.
Is that our old wizard you've got? (we changed to a new 8500E SBT a few weeks ago).

[Trinity]

Well chaps I tried the 3 card trick, the snug fit and stamp hinges.

With the 3 card trick - the images were not central to the card and I couldn't avoid borders showing or losing too much beak. By far and away the easiest and quickest and well worht a bit of mount, so I'll definately use when I can.

I made a hash of the snug fit method really - there's some skill in wielding the olfa isn't there - mine looked less than impressive.

So, I've gone for stamp hinges at the moment - they arrived today in the post. I wish now I'd gone for a set of 10 cigarette cards rather than 50 - serves me right for getting carried away with the Wizard. Lesson learnt - walk before you run.

Thanks again gents.