The Framers Forum

Does anyone know of more cost effective tape for sealing the glass + mountboard package around the edges?
As I get through quite a bit for just sealing the glass which seems a bit overkill. I don’t use it for hinging.

I use a white gummed paper tape. It's about £20 for a 350 metre roll. It's quick once you get the hang off it. Wet sponge in a small plastic container, hold the tape down on the sponge with one finger, pull the length of the tape over the sponge with your other hand, stick down. If you ever need to reopen it, it's easy to cut the tape and replace with fresh tape straight on top.

25mm masking tape.

And before anyone pipes up about longevity and acid-freeness, it only has to survive long enough
for the package to be fitted in the frame and it's far from the actual artwork to do any harm.

With all due respect the longevity does matter if you’re also using it as protection against the ingress of thrips etc into the mount package. And the residue left by masking tape after it dries isn’t a good look on the back of the boards if an item needs to be reframed. Same reason I wouldn’t use sellotape or similar. But each to their own.

We use P90 (not the plus version) for this job. Yes it costs a bit of money per roll but that’s taken into account on our fitting cost. And as a percentage of the materials cost for any framing job it’s pretty minimal anyway.

To clarify my last post.....

I'm talking about sealing the glass/ art/back into a single unit which is put in the frame and subsequently sealed
with wet paper tape. No masking tape is visible in the finished frame. The masking tape has done its job.
But... it does tend to stay sticky so continues to be handy as a trap for the little flies. They always try to get into
the FRONT of the frame. They never enter from the back. Thus they have two choices - wiggle under the tape and
get stuck or go over where there is no way in.

I have done extensive investigations over the years.

This one I reframed after about 20 years and the internal package was still sound and the masking tape had
succeeded in defending the artwork against the pesky critters.

To also clarify my post - I’d understood it was the glass/mount package you were talking about. That’s where we use the P90 and yes, thrips go from the front.

3M 810 "invisible" tape is good for this, it comes in 19mm and 25mm widths and there are cheaper alternatives. Use a dispenser because if the end gets stuck back to the roll you'll have a very bad day!

Thanks for all your suggestions, very helpful. I will probably carry on using P90..