Blueprints questions

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Puppyraiser

PFG, Picture Framing God
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A customer wants to frame the original blueprints from their building (ca 1968). She doesn't want to frame copies... the originals it must be.

So the question is: with blueprints being light sensitive, would two sheets of UVF glass be more protection than one? Or would something like laminating them mitigate fading? She says she has several copies of each, and can just switch them as she observes their fading, but she most emphatically wants to frame the originals.

Any thoughts or suggestions?
 
No, two sheets of UV-filtering glazing would not be any better than one. They both would reduce the same light frequencies by the same 98%. The only way to reduce damage better than using UV-filtering glazing is to reduce exposure to light, in terms of time and intensity.

It seems that your customer might not believe what you are telling her about the light damage issue. Perhaps she does not grasp that blueprints are extremely light sensitive -- much more prone to damage than other images on paper.

Have you asked your customer what she intends to put into the frame after she runs out of copies of the blueprints? And have you asked whether she will miss having those originals when they are gone?
 
She made it pretty plain that she understood the consequences and can live with them. I figure all I can do is educate. I can't decide.

So be it....
 
Check for heat sensitivity before mounting/laminating.
Provide the usual caveats.
Collect the check.

It might be visible light that causes fading in blue prints, then what?

I framed an old blueprint and made an opaque fabric drape that hung from the back of the top rail of the frame over the face of the frame. Whenever anyone wanted to look at the blueprint, they would have to lift the drape (could be rolled up on a dowel and rested on top of the frame). Saw this on a Winslow Homer watercolor at the local museum. Compared to the other pieces of his work on display the one with the drape had much more vivid color.

Does her office have florescent lighting?
 
Be sure to tell her to draw the drapes, turn off any lights in the room she hangs it in and close all the doors.

Also NEVER clean with any ammonia based cleaners.

:popc:
 
Hi Ellen,

I just finished a nice job of framing a nice sized blueprint. This isn't what you want to hear, but the blueprint had been framed previously by another framer, and of course it had faded. I had to scan it and send it to Digital Custom to be restored. They did a great job on the restoration and the customer ordered three extra copies for relatives.

You might scan it in just in case she changes her mind when the blueprint fades. At least you would have a scan of the original.

Susan
Whispering Woods Gallery
 
You could suggest building the frame fronted with a nice pair of hinged doors. Would protect the blueprint and increase your price!
 
Give her a sheet of mat board with a quarter sized hole cut in one corner.

Have her lay the Blueprint on her dining table, with the mat board covering it and the hole exposing some unimportant area. Don't move it for a week or two.
When she brings in the copy, you can frame it.

The Museum glass will only give her about 100 week difference at best.
 
EllenAtHowards said:
She made it pretty plain that she understood the consequences and can live with them. I figure all I can do is educate. I can't decide.

So be it....
Click to expand...

The Framer's Lament. Yes, we know it well.

Would it help to remind her that blueprints are actually a form of reproduction, and that you could get reproductions that look the same, but would last longer?

Wally makes a great point -- most blueprints (and whiteprints; drafting reproduction in general) are heat sensitive. Like thermal-printed event tickets, a blueprint might come out of the dry mount press as a blue piece of paper.

So, if you have to mount it, I suggest vacuum wet mounting
 
I started my working life in a drawing office back in the 60's. As a result I used to get to use the Diaso machine, which is where the blue prints come from.

You had to wait for the machine to warm-up before use, yes the whole process is temperature sensitive and so are the resulting prints. I doubt if you would get away with dry mounting or laminating them.

The machine had two sections, the bottom section where the master drawing and the yellow coating on the print paper were passed under the light source. After this they were feed back out again and you manually seperated them so that the master drawing came out into a tray, but you fed the exposed print paper into the top part of the machine where it was developed and fixed.

If the back ground was too dark, you could feed it back through the lower part of the machine again and the light source would lighten the print considerably even though it had been fixed. These blue prints are incredibly sensitive to light, it is very hard to overstate how much. If you left two prints on a flat surface near a window with the top one part overlapping the bottom one and then removed the top one a day later, you would be able to clearly see where the top one had overlapped the lower one.

They are also sensitive to heat. Prints used as working copies were often kept in a cooler room to extend the life of the print and the heat of a cup of coffee could sometimes affect the print too!

The prints were stored in the cool room, inside opaque blue folders hanging in a rack. The blue folders were to block out any light.

Need I say any more! Don't count too much on any protection you think to give to these. I suggest that you need to get the customer to sign something to cover you against what we all know is a dumb idea.
 
Jim Miller said:
The Framer's Lament. Yes, we know it well.

Would it help to remind her that blueprints are actually a form of reproduction, and that you could get reproductions that look the same, but would last longer?

Wally makes a great point -- most blueprints (and whiteprints; drafting reproduction in general) are heat sensitive. Like thermal-printed event tickets, a blueprint might come out of the dry mount press as a blue piece of paper.

So, if you have to mount it, I suggest vacuum wet mounting
Click to expand...
How old are these prints?
Actually cyanotype blueprints (older) are very heat sensitive and need to be hinged or wet mounted. While diazo bluelines are heat tolerant in our presses. Thermal printing is at a much higher temperature than what we bond at.

Chris A. Paschke, CPF GCF
Designs Ink
 
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