Help with mount cutter
Posted: Mon 10 Mar, 2014 11:40 pm
Newbie here!
I'm not intending getting into framing at all (don't have the time or space) but as a semi-professional artist, I am going to be making mounts for prints of some of my artwork. I'm primarily a portrait painter, but occasionally paint still-life and landscape stuff.
Recently, just for fun, I painted a small example of a jelly baby (bear with me, it's serious stuff). I was approached by a client who'd seen it and wanted me to paint six jelly babies (one of each flavour) in oils, each on it's own canvas. Business is business, and a commission to paint is always welcome, so that's what I did.
Anyhow, since then, I've had enquiries about whether I would do prints of them.... again, business is business, so I've produced some prints to order - some on canvas bonded to panels, others on fine art paper. All quality materials, archival pigments, Hahnemühle papers, etc.... scanned, colour matched and printed by myself on a large format Epson... so they're as good as they can possibly get, and, as the artist, they obviously have to be 'right'.
Although each colour of jelly baby print is a limited run of 50, I don't have the storage space or time to blitz through 50 of each flavour (plus another 50 of a set of six) and as there are different size options within each limited run, I can't predict which size will be the better seller.
I've been buying double mounts locally for the paper prints, some 11x14 with 7x9 aperture, others 6x8 with a 4.2x5.4 opening. It's a 50 mile round trip to the nearest frame shop, so it's adding to the cost and taking time just to get half-a-dozen mounts every week. It also adds to the time it takes for me to ship them out.
That's why I'm here.... trying to gain knowledge, and seriously going to make my own mounts. A mount cutter is the problem... I've bought the mountboard, hinging tape, etc.... cutter is the hold-up.
I want a reasonable quality cutter, but couldn't justify the expenditure on a Keencut. I'd prefer to have a used one, rather than brand new, but the problem is that most ebay sellers of used mountcutters won't ship and are 'pickup only'... which is fine if you're local enough, but frustrating if you're in the wilds of Aberdeenshire!
I'm thinking something along the lines of a Frameco 860b, or similar... not too sure about the Logan range, but looked at the 350 and 450
I had thought about placing an ad in the wanted section, but felt I ask for suggestions first.
I'm not intending getting into framing at all (don't have the time or space) but as a semi-professional artist, I am going to be making mounts for prints of some of my artwork. I'm primarily a portrait painter, but occasionally paint still-life and landscape stuff.
Recently, just for fun, I painted a small example of a jelly baby (bear with me, it's serious stuff). I was approached by a client who'd seen it and wanted me to paint six jelly babies (one of each flavour) in oils, each on it's own canvas. Business is business, and a commission to paint is always welcome, so that's what I did.
Anyhow, since then, I've had enquiries about whether I would do prints of them.... again, business is business, so I've produced some prints to order - some on canvas bonded to panels, others on fine art paper. All quality materials, archival pigments, Hahnemühle papers, etc.... scanned, colour matched and printed by myself on a large format Epson... so they're as good as they can possibly get, and, as the artist, they obviously have to be 'right'.
Although each colour of jelly baby print is a limited run of 50, I don't have the storage space or time to blitz through 50 of each flavour (plus another 50 of a set of six) and as there are different size options within each limited run, I can't predict which size will be the better seller.
I've been buying double mounts locally for the paper prints, some 11x14 with 7x9 aperture, others 6x8 with a 4.2x5.4 opening. It's a 50 mile round trip to the nearest frame shop, so it's adding to the cost and taking time just to get half-a-dozen mounts every week. It also adds to the time it takes for me to ship them out.
That's why I'm here.... trying to gain knowledge, and seriously going to make my own mounts. A mount cutter is the problem... I've bought the mountboard, hinging tape, etc.... cutter is the hold-up.
I want a reasonable quality cutter, but couldn't justify the expenditure on a Keencut. I'd prefer to have a used one, rather than brand new, but the problem is that most ebay sellers of used mountcutters won't ship and are 'pickup only'... which is fine if you're local enough, but frustrating if you're in the wilds of Aberdeenshire!
I'm thinking something along the lines of a Frameco 860b, or similar... not too sure about the Logan range, but looked at the 350 and 450
I had thought about placing an ad in the wanted section, but felt I ask for suggestions first.
