Ceylon Mat

Ron Eggers

SPFG, Supreme Picture Framing God
Forum Donor
Joined
Jul 6, 2001
Posts
16,932
Loc
Wisconsin
I have never pulled a mat sample because it was difficult to work with. That's about to change.

I just cut my first Bainbridge Ceylon mat. It cut just fine, but handling it was a nightmare. Everywhere I touched it left impressions from my fingers. There were lines and scuffs when I first took it out of the bag.

I used all the usual tricks that work with suede: soft brush, stiff brush, steam - even Jim's "spritz and blow dry" trick. What I finally ended up with was a uniformly distressed mat.

(Note to self: This isn't suede.)

That was a mean trick, Bainbridge, but I forgive you. Just don't ever do that again.
 
I agree Ron. When a customer wants one of those **** mats, I try to talk them out of it. If they persist I charge double my suede mat price because of the risk. However, the CMC does reduce handling so I haven't removed the samples.

Pat :D
 
Our Bainbridge rep was in here the other day and raved about Ceylon mats and pointed out how richer the colors are. That is true but mmmmaaaannnnnn are they weird to handle. I just ditched the samples.
 
Black Ceylon suede was one of my top ten selling mats. I love the deep rich black color. We never had any trouble handling it.

Maybe it's me? Maybe it's youse guys?

I like the nap run top-to-bottom but you can get interesting color variations by reversing the direction.

Kit
 
I'm glad to hear I'm not the only one who has the same experience with the ceylon. I recently did my first ceylon design with the ruby ceylon... get this... ruby ceylon WITH a BLACK SUEDE bevel accent!
faintthud.gif
AND I had to line the underside of the bevel accent with 2 ply Alpha rag for conservation purposes. The first try was ALMOST perfect... I had the foresight to protect the surface with 1 ply cardboard under the clamp of the wall cutter but I still managed to get a finger mark on it while applying the bevel accent. For the second try, I took the definition of "gingerly" and multiplied it by 1,000... everything was just ducky on try #2. I was pretty proud!
 
Hmmm . . . I think I see a pattern here.

I used a bevel accent - a Faux Fillet, actually - under my Ceylon mat, too.

Pretty hard to minimize handling in that case.
 
Back
Top