Mountboard chevrons with a tab

[Martin Harrold]

We have an idea to supply mountboard chevrons cut with a tab sticking out of one of the top corners. This would be labelled in some way. We would supply them to framers to help them divide up their 'saddles' of corner samples. Hopefully, that would make it easier for them to promote our various brands of mountboard to their customers.
They would act as divisions betwen different types, shade groups, brands, etc. They would need to be cut on a CMC, with bevelled inside edges and a straight outside edge, including around the tab.
One of my suppliers who has a CMC for corner samples told me that it's not possible to cut what I've described. Can anyone here prove them wrong?

[John]

Something like this might work. The shape and location of the tabs may not be ideal, but can easily be redesigned.

mount.gif (12.66 KiB) Viewed 16693 times

The black inner square is a bevel cut, and the red perimeter a straight cut.

If it is more convenient, the straight cut along the dotted lines could be cut by guillotine.

[Grahame Case]

Martin, any particular rush for this? could you give us a few days and i'll see what i can conjure up

[Martin Harrold]

John, Grahame,

Thanks for your input - yep - that's the idea. And no, time is not a big issue right now - we've got the big Photokina and Art Fair Europe shows ahead of us in the next few weeks.

Looks like it can be done and John's drawing is about right. We'd get 4 out of a 'square', and guess they culd be handed left or right, which might be helpful on a 'saddle'.

Grahame - if you can knock out few trial ones, that would be great. Mail them to me with an invoice. I'll see if I can let you have some preferred sizes soonest. We'd have to send you board - good though ArtCare board may be, the special corners would have to be in the same board as the samples when in production.

[Bill Henry]

If you are looking for mount board (mat board) dividers, they are available over here from both Larson-Juhl and, I think, United MFRs. In addition, Crescent Mat Board and Nielsen-Bainbridge also can supply them.

They are generally made from plastic and would hold up better than those made from mount board, IMO.

One thing that annoyed me about those from Bainbridge is that they came with pre-applied labels. I ended tossing them in the rubbish because I segregate my corner samples differently than they required.

[John]

they could be handed left or right, which might be helpful on a 'saddle'.

It might also be worth considering positioning the tab at varying distances from the 'apex', the distance being relative to catalogue number or colour, so that when the chevrons are in order the tabs would follow a straight diagonal line. That way you could tell at a glance if the display was out of sequence.

[GUNNAR]

Hi Martin,
Gunnar's SPT32 has a number of chevron designs built into the software to include the design you require.
Regards

Sarah

[kev@frames]

martin we have been cutting some of our own chevrons from time to time. one problem with the bevel cut inner edge in the mountboard racks as currently supplied for colourmount is that the aluminium rods in the racks leave markes on the white core, and batter the bevels a bit too, so they can look pretty tatty. The current die-stamped outer edges actually look pretty neat in the racks too, and dont get too messed up.

The tabs are a good idea

[Spit]

You could cut a couple of bits of mountboard to tape over the rods, which would alleviate that problem.

I could do these designs, however I have the Gunnar F1 which doesn't do 90 degree cuts, so the outer edge would be reverse bevel. If Martin would like to buy me a nice new 601........

[kev@frames]

You could cut a couple of bits of mountboard to tape over the rods, which would alleviate that problem.
.....

i'll be doing that tomorrow !!!

[Martin Harrold]

Our planning on this project assumes that they will be placed on our own steel mountboard corner chevron display stand, which has two long flat surfaces to minimise damage to inner bevelled edges of samples. It also has re-positionable divider rods, so framers can adjust the spacing to suit their preferences.

Rarely now does any framer use only one brand of mountboard and as samples vary in size, they can be difficult to display on any one suppliers display stand.

[Roboframer]

No matter what method you use, you still have to put all the corner samples back in order after customers have trashed your nicely arranged caddy/tower/whatever.

I like the idea of tabs - but make them like index tabs in books/folders and don't have them cut the same; have them staggered so that you can see that you are putting them back in the right order, even if only roughly - forget using them to separate brands/whatever - you still have to make sure the right stuff is between those tabs; in the right order - so what about what is between those tabs - how is all that organised? Because it needs to be.

It's no good knowing everything between tabs is from certain suppliers, the colours between the tabs need organising too!

I still find the easiest method, by far, is, once your samples are all nicely in place, to squeeze them tight together and draw a line, with a sharpie, along the exposed edges from top left to bottom right.

I have the basic artcare range on a caddy with that sharpie line, and then I have a metal revolving spinner - bevels up and about 5 corners per slot - it's a well discontinued Nielsen spinner that I'd be lost without - on that goes the stuff that would be hard to find on the caddy, (the caddy is just for basic colour) such as patterned finishes, suedettes, coloured cores, rice papers, etc etc, plus the best selling mount slips, attached to mount corners, also about 40 washline (French mat) samples.

If I had three or four mountboard suppliers, and used them pretty equally, well, I'd need more caddys/spinners, but I'd still have the problem of sorting then after a busy day or a PITA customer ...... or after any order my wife takes!!

I'd hate to not only have to get the colours in order but also have to get the right samples on the right caddys!!

The best methods are simple - I can very quickly drop my my samples back in the caddy so that the sharpie line generally runs from top left to bottom right - if I have a slack half hour I can get them exactly top left to bottom right - once a week then, about 16:30 on a Saturday.

If I REALLY needed extra separation, all I'd need do is change the colour of the dots on the relevant samples.

[Roboframer]

Our planning on this project assumes that they will be placed on our own steel mountboard corner chevron display stand, which has two long flat surfaces to minimise damage to inner bevelled edges of samples.

I don't worry about this - chances are they will get grubby just as fast amyway.

Rarely now does any framer use only one brand of mountboard and as samples vary in size, they can be difficult to display on any one suppliers display stand.

Your off white samples get minging - so what do you do, order a complete new sample set from the supplier?

I mean, they won't just replace the grubby ones - has to be all or nothing.

So what you do is cut new samples from your own offcuts/stock - artcare is 11 1/4 x 4"

Artcare is my main range - any other is cut to that size by myself, if it's on the caddy that is, if it's bevel up, on the spinner, it's not an issue.

[Martin Harrold]

The ideas are coming thick and fast - so thanks, all.

Sharpie line - there's a man who's familiar with things in the USA - Magik Marker to us. Is there ever a problem with bleed?

We played with the idea of getting the chevrons made with notches, which would be staggered to create a diagonal line. But it would be costly, logisticaly complex and what happens when colours are added or deleted? The 'Sharpie' line is a much simpler alternative.

The tabbed chevrons would, in our thinking, only be dividers, between ranges and brands. It would be technically possble to cut all chevrons on a DMC and the tabs staggered and each labelled on the front, but again, the cost and logistics would be prohibitive.

I've spoken with manufacturers and have made some progress with my argument that the huge 'all or nothing' packs of corner chevrons they normally send out is very wasteful and often impractical. I have persuaded Daler to do a pack of their 10 most popular Conservation corners, but it's taking longer than expected to get them made. But, when available, it will mean that framers using Daler Conservation could put a nice new set ofthe most fingered colours in their racks.

My - this is a complex subject with a lot of variables, but some much appreciated ideas are being floated. It will be a while now before our thinking settles down but I'll summarise it on here when it does.

Thanks again to all - Martin

[Roboframer]

Sharpie line - there's a man who's familiar with things in the USA - Magik Marker to us. Is there ever a problem with bleed?

Oo-er! We buy sharpies from Viking Direct, that's what they call 'em and that's what's printed on the pens.

As for bleed - well this sample organisation is one bleeding big problem!

But no - it's not a problem, and I don't think it would be if the dots actually did bleed a bit on to the front of the samples. Boot prints are my biggest problem!

This subject has been done to death on The Grumble - I'll do a search there soon and get back - or anyone else can - just go to 'advanced search' think of some keywords like 'Mat samples' - or 'organise' in topic titles only on the main forum (The Grumble, as opposed to business issues etc etc).

Some of those guys have tiered caddys - about twice as long as mine - two below and one above, with a flourescent light under the top one to illuminate the bottom two!! Without a system that works they'd be buggered after my average customer!

[Grahame Case]

hi Martin,


still in the design stages here, i think John's way is the simplest after many hours of testing otherways

although we don't have a guilotine, and the wastage on say a valiani Matpro Xi150 with the clamps bottom and left would be quite wasteful.

[kev@frames]

just a thought. you could cut in rail-dodge mode (pretend its a wizard), presumably you can set the start position, and you only need one clamp if you start cutting from the corner furthest from the clamped end, thats 40mm gained (waste clawed back) on the long side and also interlock the chevrons in a "herringbone" pattern, and get around 30 percent better yeild per board, use a jumbo and even less waste per board.
then charge martin for it the "straightforward" way with the original waste factor... erm.... did I say that out loud

Yes, the thought processes of a man who has spent too many years staring at strange shapes on CMC screens and wondering how to get the max out of every board either that, or it proves them wrong when they say drugs have no long lasting effects


OR - just bevel cut the inner edges of die-cut chevrons- but that would be the deep joy of feeding in one at a time into the cmc, but no worries about clamp waste - virtually zero waste if you are only taking of a 1.5mm slice in the insides.

Getting these guillotined at a printers would cost you peanuts btw.

[Not your average framer]

I've thought long and hard about the best way to organise mounts in a meaningful order and I never found a system that is ideal. I had always intended to follow the colour wheel sequence, but what do you do about neutrals, white and greys, as such shades also include hints of colour too.

I've ended up with some colours sort of grouped in sequence and and separately at the front of the caddy in no particular order, I have the most popular and therefore most regularly chosen ones.

Some nice plastic dividers might be a helpful product to have.

[Bill Henry]

We find the mat (mount) board separators invaluable. Since I cannot bare the thought of tossing anything away, we have five brass racks full of samples. Keeping them apart is essential for us to find anything.

For no particular reason other than on a whim, we separate the samples first by manufacturer (e.g. Bainbridge, Crescent, Miller), then by “core” (e.g. Alpha, Papermats, Black Core), then either by broad colo(u)r category or by specialty type (suede, silk, flannel, moiré, etc.) Actually, perhaps there is a reason. Our pricing structure goes along with that organization.





For example we may have “Crescent : RagMat : Browns – Beige” (with a similar grouping for Bainbridge and Miller), and “Bainbridge – Formals” or “Crescent – Moorman Linen”. It probably doesn’t make too much sense to anyone other than us.

But, it really helps us find something we are looking for and speeds up the process at the design counter.



The four inch black separators didn’t show up too well in the image, so I outlined the top one. On both the 4 inch black and the 2-1/2 inch white separators, the tabs themselves are four inches wide and about and inch deep. This gives us plenty of room to slap a standard (well, a U.S. standard) address label on them. My handwriting is pretty bad and a printed label looks better anyway.

I cannot remember with absolute certainty, but I believe that we got our 2-1/2 inch white ones from Larson-Juhl and the 4 inch black ones from Crescent. If I can recall, we rejected the Bainbridge separators because they came pre-printed with what they decided should be the standard categories. We much prefer to settle on our own scheme.