Help with buckling window mats

white318

Grumbler in Training
Joined
Mar 24, 2009
Posts
4
Hi there,
I need help with fixing buckling mats in a window mat. We finished 3 frames that had 24 6x4 inch photo cutouts. We hinged each photo to the matboard then did double sided tape and glue around each photo. We put each one in the vacuum press to seal tightly.
When the frames left here they were absolutely perfect. After 2 to 3 weeks the client called and said the mats were buckling. I live in Sydney, Australia so we definitely have humidity and wetness in the air when it rains alot.
The mats are not to tight in the frames.
Any ideas???

ny
IMG_0557.jpg
ideas????
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Most photos I frame I usually drymount with MountCor. I never hinge or attached anything to the mat board, I hinge, use mylar corner, drymount, or attach many other ways to the backing board, which is usually AF foam core. I then use 3M 969 double sided tape and spots of glue to attach the mat but I do prefer to use a flip window so that the mat can naturally expand and contract. I have never had a problem with buckling mats when using 969 and glue but I have had problems a couple time when using flip window mats with multi window openings, mainly because of the many window weakening the mat in certain areas when expanding and contracting. I'm in Minnesota with 10,000 lakes so there is plenty of humidity here too. If you do drymount the photo be sure the customer has a back up disc with the photos just in case something goes wrong or if they want to frame the photos for someone else, or in plain words, make sure the photos can be replaced if needed.
 
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Maybe have your customer check the relative humidity in their house? Maybe buy a portable dehumidifier? I had the same sort of problem with a customer in a 100 year-old house - turned out it was very damp inside and after she bought a dehumidifier everything behaved. Also hanging on inside walls helps, instead of outside walls.
 
I think the key factor is that you glued the photos to the mat all round. The mats swelled a different degree to
the photos and not being able to 'stretch' out they bent. It's like a bi-metalic strip in a thermostat, one metal
expands more with heat and bends the strip. One lesson to learn: Don't try and restrain things. Let everything
have elbow room. Paper exerts huge forces when it expands.
 
You also need an allowance between the frame package (mount and undermount or mat and backing, depending on what side of the pond you live) and the frame moulding to allow for expansion.
 
I guess the problem occurred because you did seal it too tightly.

Mount to backboard for sure. If the high humidity is the problem, maybe do 8-ply mat. Fit it all loosely so it can expand when needed.
You might use a 1/4 inch allowance instead of the 1/8, depending on lip of the frame
 
Unfortunately for you, it looks as though you are going to have to recut those mats because you will never be able to remove them from the backing board in one piece.

Are they photos copies or originals? I usually use acid free foam board as backing which is less likely to warp.

Good luck!

And be sure to let us know the outcome.
 
Joe B wrote I never hinge or attached anything to the mat board,
Prospero wrote I think the key factor is that you glued the photos to the mat all round.

This is where you problems started. As a mat board manufacturer I always explain that mat board is made from dead trees, but its still alive!
Its made of millions of tiny cells which can and will absorb and release moisture as the temperature and humidity conditions change in the home
From your picture it seems the mats have expanded, but the photos have stayed same size, thus creating tension, resulting in the buckling
Better never to attach anything to the back of the mat, Use a separate sheet as an artwork support. And attach the photos in such a way, that if they want to expand or contact they are free to do so.
And if you want to do an experiment cut 2 strips of mat board 40 x 1 inch. Place one in a damp place and the other in a dry place. Bring them together 1 week later and tell me how different the lengths are
 
I sell frames with mats on Etsy where the CX will be mounting the items themselves. Figuring out how to instruct them on mounting their items was a challenge until I remembered Tom Lehrer's Magnum Opus, "Lobachevsky"

I am never forget the day I first meet the great Lobachevsky
In one word he told me secret of success in mathematics:
Plagiarize

Plagiarize!
Let no one else's work evade your eyes
Remember why the good Lord made your eyes
So don't shade your eyes
But plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize

Only be sure always to call it please "research"

So with that in mind, I scoured the literature and put together my Tomb on Hinge Mounting keeping Lobachevsky in mind.

I am never forget the day my first book is published
Every chapter I stole from somewhere else
Index I copy from old Vladivostok telephone directory
This book was sensational!
Pravda - well, Pravda - Pravda said:
Zhil byl korol' kogda-to, Pri nem blokha zhila
("It stinks")
But Izvestia! Izvestia said:
Ya idu kuda sam tsar' idet peshkom
("It stinks")
Metro-Goldwyn Moskva buys the movie rights for six million rubles
Changing title to 'The Eternal Triangle'

With Ingrid Bergman playing part of hypotenuse

So without further ado, here it is. If you don't like it, don't tell me, I didn't write it, just stole everything from somewhere and put it all together.

HingeMount1.jpg


HingeMount2.jpg


I'm not sure what the black spaces are. I converted a word doc to an image and those black lines/spaces aren't in the word doc. But if any of yous want to re-steal this, go ahead.






 

Attachments

  • HingeMount2.jpg
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And for those of you that have never listened to the genius that is Lobachevsky, here we go.

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BTW, in keeping with the spirit of the song, Lehrer stole this from Danny Kaye who use the melody and similar lyrics for a song "about the great Russian director Stanislavsky and the secret of success in the Acting profession "
 
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"Ingrid Bergman playing part of the hypotenuse." (Always my favorite line from that one!)

He sometimes changed that, maybe to fit his audience. I know of one other version where Brigitte Bardot played the part and I vaguely recall another one, maybe Doris Day.
 
The Platform Mount is made for this kind of project, which retains the paper items between two mat layers; no adhesives in direct contact. Make a mat with a straight-cut opening to fit dimensions of the item (plus 1/2 of 1% added for expansion), and save the fall-out (this becomes the Platform). Glue it securely to the back of a mat with a bevel-edge window at least 1/4" smaller (to cover at least 1/8" all around). To compete the mount, drop the paper item into the straight-cut opening and replace the fall-out; tape it loosely to hold the item in. Customers can install their own items or replace them at will, if you fit the frame with turnbuttons or flexible points.
Drawing-Platform Mount Pg-Reduced 4-25-15.jpg


If you have a CMC, you can easily eliminate the issue by using a multi-window Platform Mount. If you don't have a CMC, you can still do that, but it's not as easy. Essentially, it's like cutting an upside-down, multi-opening double mat, with the larger opening precisely fitted to the item (plus .5% for allowance; that is, x.005) The attached photos show how it works.

On the Framers Only Facebook forum, March 2, 2019, Mo Elyas and I presented an online class on Platform Mounting, which is still available for purchase online.
Photo-Multi-Platform Front A.jpg
Photo-Multi-Platform Mounts-BEST-Opened.jpg
 
I think the key factor is that you glued the photos to the mat all round. The mats swelled a different degree to
the photos and not being able to 'stretch' out they bent.

That's not how I read it " We hinged each photo to the matboard (that's how they were mounted) then did double sided tape and glue around each photo" ... so, the mat apertures around the photos were fixed to the mounting board, around the photo perimeters but not (necessarily) with adhesive on the photos.
 
Hmmm. So if attachment is NOT the problem it must be environmental conditions of excess humidity in the home of the customer.

Question? Is the matboard behind the mat with the openings also warped? Or is the glued/taped cut mat pulling away from the substrate?

This whole thing is crazy.

Maybe there is a pipe leaking in the wall?

Were all three frames on the same wall?
 
That's not how I read it " We hinged each photo to the matboard (that's how they were mounted) then did double sided tape and glue around each photo" ... so, the mat apertures around the photos were fixed to the mounting board, around the photo perimeters but not (necessarily) with adhesive on the photos.

Ah gotcha.😃 But the same thing holds true. The window mat must have expanded at a different rate to the undermount.
Thus arching away and breaking the bond of the glue/ ds tape. If it hadn't been glued it would be free to push out and not buckled.

QED. 😉
 
My business was in an inner city area where there were a lot of old houses built around the turn of the century. Brickwork was often done with techniques like "French Bond" and "Flemish Bond" whereby some bricks, sometimes entire courses were laid across the cavity for added strength. Good structurally but no good for keeping damp out. In my shop I once had to replace a few prints when a heavy downpour let water into one of the wall cavities. The dampness was not obvious from inside but it was enough to ruin those frames.

I would suggest that after fixing this problem you ask the customer to make sure he hangs it on an inside wall.
 
One of the best threads on TG. It has everything :)

Education, humour, great music, Lobachevsky , Ingrid Bergman playing part of the hypotenuse , advice on where to hang pictures, pics from where ( not sure ) Latvia or Russia, a minor fracas between 2 eminent British framers, and even useful information on cavity walls, plus 2 great and explicit diagrams.
I bet the OP never expected these replies when he posted his question !

`We cant expect more, or can we :D
 
I sure hope we have not scared the OP away with the vast outpouring of framing knowledge and unbridled jocularity . . .

All we need now is some circles and arrows on the back explaining what each one was . . .
 
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