Creating a domed mount

Brian Gorman

True Grumbler
Joined
Jun 19, 2002
Posts
87
Loc
Orange County, CA
OK this is something I have never tried....

Our client has brought us a couple of old antique oval frames with "domed" glass. They would like us to fit a couple of new pictures into the frames and dome the mount like the previous pictures that were in the frames.

Does anyone have any idea on how to accomplish this task?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.
 
Those circa 100 year old photos were wet mounts done in a propiatory mounting press with a curved top and bottom much like punch press forming dies. Unless you have the dies (pattern form) duplicating the shape might be a little difficult.

With that said placing an image between 2 concave lites of glass might do the trick as a wet mount die.
 
Make a plaster cast of the inside, and outside of the domed glass to use as a form. You should be able to deform and laminate layers of 1-ply rag if you moisten them thoroughly and use nori paste.( be sure to seal the castings to keep them from reacting to the moisture in the paper.

Laminating the photo is the real trick. It'll need to be a print on fiber paper, and you may have to peel some of the back layers of the paper off of the print to get it thin enough.

Another option would be to use a vinyl vacuum bag to deform the paper over the convex form you have cast. There are some articles in woodworking magazines about constructing a vacuum bag.
 
wally i bow to you...if you have done this you the man! this sounds like a smart man. i would love to see someone do this at a trade show....any takers?

d
 
Wally, you definitely da man for even having an idea like that!!!!!!

I have to admit, that is way above my head in thought and most likely execution. I think I like CAframer's idea of outsourcing this one if the customer so desires.

I was hoping I could just turn on my heat press and mount it with some kind of support underneath the mount to create the shaping necessary.

From the responses so far, that doesn't seem like a wise decision.

Jerome, thanks for the history leason. That will surely come in handy with future customers. Where is Pleasant Ridge? I am from grew up in the metro Detroit area and went to Ferris.
 
I printed on a very fine watercolor paper, then wet the paper's backside and vacumed onto the face of the domed glass.

We held the vacum to only -5 pounds. More than enough to form the wet noodle.

We did three more papers then laminated them with Frank's fabric glue, and sucked them all together. Looked great. Even if it wasn't photo paper......
 
Thanks for the link CAframer, It is bookmarked for future reference.


Brian; Pleasant Ridge is betweed Ferndale and Royal Oak. About 1/2 sq. mile with only 8-10 businessed. They are not very business savy as a city; but it could be worse. The economy in Metro Detroit still is still # 3, (from the bottom). only Alaska and Oregon are worse. This is an article from the Sunday News http://www.detnews.com/2004/business/0411/07/a01-327623.htm
 
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