Fabric Wrap Mats

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MattLauder

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Sep 2, 2008
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Australia
Hi Guys,
I'm looking into the prospect of offering my framed landscape photos with fabric wrapped mats. I have seen it on other photographers work and it appears to be a different look worth trying. I would only offer it on larger sized photos like 50 to 80 inch wide.

I was thinking of heading down to my local fabric shop and looking for a nice quality material, then coating my mats with some roll adhesive (Gudy 802) and going from there.

Just wondering if I am on the right path and if anyone has any experience in doing this that care to comment or give some tips to getting a quality job done especially on the internal corners etc.

Thanks

Matt
 
I see that you're from Australia, but if you can get your hands on Baer Charlton's Fabric Wrapping 101 instructional DVD, it would be extremely helpful. He goes through all the steps of how to fabric wrap mats and liners. I would have loved to take a hands on course from him, but have managed well with learning from his DVD. Mind you, my mats are much smaller than what your talking about and I think it would be a good idea to practice on smaller size mats before tackling large ones :)

With sizes that large, I would think you'd need to use a glue that can be heat re-activated as it would be difficult to roll on a thin coat of glue over the entire mat and get the fabric laid down without the glue drying on you. Frank's Fabric glue is great for this and I believe some other framers use acrylic gel medium, which may be more readily available in your location. I'm not familiar with the Gudy 802 glue that you have.

There are companies in the U.S. that supply fabrics specifically for the framing industry. I buy from Frank's Fabrics as Frank's ships to Canada and they are great people to do business with (perhaps they will ship to Australia as well). The fabrics that you'll find in local fabric stores are probably not the best to use due to the sizing in the fabric.
 
Thanks for the reply Karen and the details of where to get further info. The Gudy 802 is a a roll adhesive with a release paper that I can use with my 64 inch wide laminator. Great piece of equipment to mount photos and make your own stick board (MDF) for photo mounting. I'll give a few of our Aussie moulding suppliers a call and see if they know of any local fabric suppliers.

Thanks again. :)
 
Matt, I misunderstood when you said "roll adhesive" when you talked about the Gudy 802 - I was thinking it was a roll-on adhesive (i.e. glue). I remember reading other posts where framers have used Fusion 4000 to drymount fabric on a substrate, so your Gudy 802 may be suitable to use.

If you need to resort to using fabric from a local fabric shop, I think if you wash it a number of times to remove the sizing it should be okay to use. I'm no expert, so I may be mistaken on this point.

Good luck!
 
I've fabric-wrapped mats by pre-mounting drymount film on the surface - don't cut the window out - leave top paper on. The let it cool, peel off the release paper and smooth on the fabric. Works best with thinnish stuff. Great for silk. Put it back in the press but put the dropout from the window back in place (same way it came out - but on top of the fabric) - tacked with a dab of d/s tape. This will bond the fabric to the surface and also stick it onto the bevel. The heat and moisture in the press will deform the fabric into the corners nicely. After that's cool, cut the fabric that covers the window to within maybe an inch of the edge, make cuts into the corners and fold the flaps round the back. Into the press again for a quick squeeze to secure them.

Never tried it on deep mats or with heavy fabric. Something you need to test first. No reason it shouldn't work on a big scale. Assuming you have access to a big enough press.
 
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