The Framers Forum

I've picked up a job to frame a vintage Playboy magazine, but the customer wants to be able to access it after it's been framed. I explained that I wasn't sure the best way of doing it, but that I'd work something out. I'm nearing the required by date now and need a plan. I was thinking I could use a platform mount, but in an ideal world, I'd have the whole of the magazine showing, Does anyone have any experience of this sort of thing and suggestions? Thanks in advance.

When it's in a frame you will only see the cover, so why not get a high-quality print of the cover and frame that and
keep the actual magazine in a safe place.

People tend to think that framing something will protect it. It generally won't. For a start it will be exposed to light
which isn't a good thing. Magazines are essentially ephemeral and not meant to last so the printing inks are not lightfast.
(UV filtering glass only slows the fading process and doesn't eliminate it completely).

You won’t only see the cover if it’s float mounted - it’s just a matter of how to do that and also make it take-outable!

Don’t confuse platform mounts with sink mounts - a sink mount would do the job very easily but, as you say, would make it two-dimensional instead of three, in which case it really may as well be a print of the cover.

UV glass and a good position, like maybe a corridor of hallway with no windows, will help a lot.

Lightfast inks are not fade resistant anyway, the term is misleading- google it!

Try this - a partial melinex magazine mount (the full job is being discussed simultaneously on the forum). Do the first wrap as normal, ie all bar the cover, then, to stop the cover from opening, either a single melinex strap on the right or one across each right hand corner.

The magazine will just slide out of the mount to the left.

The customer will just have to make sure the frame isn’t tilted to the left, but as long as the space around it isn’t more than the width of the magazine, it won’t fall out completely anyway.

If you mount it to a board cut to the same size as the magazine - which is how I’d do it anyway, that board can be attached to the back mount by Velcro, so the whole assembly can be removed to make the un-mounting bit even simpler.

I’d have the frame accessible from the front to minimise disturbance and to not ever have to put it face down.

Never done this, but how about . . . .

1) Create a sturdy backing board, by bonding mountboard and foamcor/Dibond or similar together
2) Create 2 or 3 Mylar strips to hold the magazine in the normal way, but with one end attached with Velcro so that it can be undone, and redone, and because the backing board is strong and durable, the Mylar can easily be pulled tight to reposition the magazine.

No one has even touched on the fact that it is a Playboy magazine that the customer wishes to be removeable. That's a hard NO from me. I'm not sure any of my female friends would speak to me again if I hung that in my house, let alone the wife. Hallway??? Dungeon maybe...

Apologies for the delay in providing an update on the outcome - thanks to everyone for their comments.

I thought that Prospero's comment about the magazine fading was a good one, so with the customer's agreement, I ended up getting the cover scanned and printed. In doing that, the magazine itself can be browsed at leisure. I get where you're coming from Justin, but the magazine was from April 1973 and therefore a 50th birthday present. I of course had a quick leaf through and by today's standards, it wasn't really pornographic at all!

I've attached a photo of the finished frame (top half only as I couldn't avoid reflections)

There are possibly 3 concepts that come to me at the top of my head. There might be more.

A. a cabinet style with a front door
B. a shoe box style(the box top facing front) with a friction holding front
C. a rear access door, either with turnbuttons, a door, or slip out tray(again a friction fit/hold)