The Framers Forum

has anyone ever tried to stretch a papyrus onto some canvass stretcher bars. before the lock down i had a papyrus piece left with me to frame. the customer wanted to see the edge of the paper and it was to be mounted from behind and glazed. the problem i have is my glass supplier doesn't have any glass big enough and isn't sure when they will have a delivery.so my idea to put to the customer is to frame it like a canvass without glass. the paper is 1900 mm x 1200 mm

If it's a proper papyrus, then you will not be able to stretch on stretcher bars as it will just crumble, Wessex can cut 3mm glass in that size , or you could try a local glazer, they will bound to cut you some to size

I think at that size I'd be speaking to Wessex about acrylic - would certainly help with the weight.

Stretching a large papyrus is not going to happen. It's made of what once was living mater, namely rushes from the waters of the nile. It's very unlikely go down flat onto a canvas and it's going to do it's own thing as the seasonal levels of ambient humidity vary. I'm not being funny, that just might be the most difficult item to frame that might ever come your way.

Genuine papyri often contain some measure of camel dung as well, how are you going to fix to that? Smaller papyri are relatively easy, as they acan be sandwiched between two pieces of glass. When you start to consider papyri as big as that, you have got to think about the expansion and contraction with the ambient humidity, on a much larger scale and do some serious research about how on earth you are going to even going to safely frame this.

Thank you. I thought about acrylic glass and I have spoken to 3 suppliers near by, its all been used making retailer counter screens. Hadn’t thought about Wessex, but not sure if they would deliver I piece,

Have you tried Centrado?