Help I need to mount a ten foot photo...

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Welcome to the Grumble. Is this a piece of any special value or just a display item. Sign supply companies carry oversize substrates of all types. You could use a mechanical press, a roller press or do it by hand. Drymount tissue or PMA on a roll would work. Tell us something about your art and your equipment and we will have solutions. Conservation mounting can be done a number of different ways but we need to know more.
 
Thanks for getting back to me Jeff!
I am waiting for a call back from my client, but I think it is cibachrome. It is a valuable piece. It is 116" horizontal and 20" verticle. My vac seal is only 3X4 so I will have to do this by hand. It is hard to find product here on the island, but a sign shop sounds like an excelent place to start! I did find 1/4 plexi at ten ft, I may be able to mount the photo to it, but at just under $600 a sheet, I hope I can come up with other options!
 
If its a valuable piece, don't drymount it....use other conservation methods. With more info, we can give you more ideas.
 
http://epaperflip.com/aglaia/viewer.aspx?docid=6edf0cdfcd3c48fe87e837513ad31ab9

Check out the top right corner of the page. The aluminum panel comes in 4'x10 at under $150. Island prices will be a little higher but not even close to $600. Now are you sure that you want to mount a valuable Cibachrome. Two drawbacks are the possible lost value of the piece and they are damaged very easily. There are a lot of positionable mounting adhesives on rolls out there and many high end photographers use them. The aluminum panels are appropriate for this type of photo and there is no flex with very little weight.

The suppliers will also cut it for a small fee.
 
It's unlikely ( but not impossible) that your 116” long print is a Cibachrome.

Often Fuji Flex Supergloss RA4 paper is confused with Cibachrome. The Fuji paper can be printed digitally and long, long prints are possible. I'm not aware of anyone digitally printing and processing Cibachrome.

Google Peter Lik photographer to see the capabilities of Fuji Flex Supergloss. This is cool stuff.

I would outsource the mounting to a commercial display company.

It would take one very big enlarger in a very big darkroom, to make a 116” print.

Many years ago I operated a DeVere, horizontal track, 8 x 10 enlarger and the biggest print we made was 40” x 60” .
 
I really don't want to dry mount this piece, I am just searching for ideas, I usually hinge photos, but I havn't done anything so big.
As far as the positionable mounting adhesives mentioned... Do you have a sugestion for a particular product, and will it be cons quality?

Funny to hear the Peter Lik advice, I am heading there in the morning to pick thier brains :) And after, straight to our sign company for an aluminum panel.

I love this Grumble site! Thank you everyone for all your help!
 
I don't know the properties of the pressure sensitive adhesives but as a general rule they would not be considered conservation. 3M makes PMA and you could call them for technical data.

I know there is a liquid adhesive that can be used with Melinex to make hinges for RC papers but don't know if it would hold an entire photo if rolled onto aluminum. I don't know if it has been tried but I believe the adhesive is allowed to dry fully before adhering and it sticks to the RC papers. Lets see if Jim Miller chimes in since he is most familiar with it.

That is all theory because you would never want to be the first one to try it with expensive art that you may have to pay to replace.
 
It's too big for PMA. The size of it would overwhelm the shear properties of the adhesive.

If it is a valuable piece as you say, then you should not be thinking of ANY adhesive mounting at all unless the artist who made the image is the one wanting it to be hard mounted.
Remember that the idea of mounting valuable art is for it to be completely reversible. You could use corner pockets and alot of supports along the top and bottom but the piece will not look flat.

My own personal feelings is that I'd rather see it hard mounted and have the piece look good and I do that with my own images but to do it to someone else's is inviting possible liability issues on down the road.
Does the customer want it hard mounted to look nice and flat? Did you even discuss this with them?
 
The problem with permanent mounting is that it tends to not look good later, when the adhesive fails and makes bubbles or wrinkles in the mounted image.

And in mounting something so large, there is an increased risk of immediate damage or destruction if anything goes wrong. Even if this photo may be easily replaced and has no enduring value, a replacement would certainly cost a lot more than the profit on the framing, so I suggest playing it safe.

I would be inclined to use pass-through hinges every 12" or so. If the art paper is coated on the back, secure the hinges using Lascaux 360 as a contact cement (dry only to tacky before bonding) instead of starch paste.

The mount board may be a sheet of acrylic, and its static charge may enhance the mount. Or, a 4-ply alpha cellulose board may be reinforced with fluted polypropylene (such as Coroplast) or aluminum laminate (such as DiBond or AlucoBond).

I would also use a window mat with a generous overlap of the sheet's edges, and a spacer to separate it from UV-filtering acrylic by at least 1/4".
 
The client is the artist, and we did discuss it. He too prefers for it to look flat. This entire order is tentative to what I can come up with, so I am not yet liable for anything. But would love to come up with the magic solution as he may be bringing me many more in the future.

Someone just mentioned Gudy 831, so I am going to look into it, as well as a 120" Cresent mat board adhered to a spliced foamcore backing. Any opinions on Gudy 831?

Jim- I totally agree with you! I will look into all the products you sugesed, thank you! I am unfortunatly not using a mat board, but a fabric liner, so I won't have much coverage for the edges. There will be a filet inside the liner for a tad bit more, but it is a very thin filet.
 
If it's a metallic paper by Kodak it might be Endura. I get Mpix to print my photos on to this paper and they are very shinny and will have a metallic sheen to them in the white area.
Check with Mpix (http://www.mpix.com) on how they mount them as they offer the service when getting prints from them, so I'm sure they know how to deal with the stuff.

Here is where they talk about the Endura:
http://www.mpix.com/Papers.aspx#metallic

You might also contact Kodak. Every time I contacted them they were more than helpful.
Steve
 
hawaiian11 said:
...I am unfortunatly not using a mat board, but a fabric liner, so I won't have much coverage for the edges...
Click to expand...

You will probably regret building a frame design with small coverage of the edges. How about a wider fillet or a 1/2" wide mat inside the liner?
 
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