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Mounting High Gloss Photos

H

HarryGMCPF

MGF, Master Grumble Framer
Joined
Nov 15, 2004
Posts
797
From
Northborough, MA
I am looking for info on the best way to mount a high gloss digital photographic print on to Gatorboard. I have tested a couple and I can't seem to get them to not have any of those pesky little pimples in them. No matter how dust free I try to work... The heat does not seem to be a problem.

I beleive there is a roller mount system that I saw one time. Yes?

Should I use a PMA? Maybe less likely to attract dust?

Cofused and stumped I am.

Any thoughts?

I would love to get this account...could be a really good one.

Thanks for your help.
Harry
 
You need a "clean room" and a roller press, or you could outsource the mounting to someone that has them.
PMA is not consistent enough in thickness, and it really never transfers well from the mask to the back of the photo. Besides, it's not very permanent.
There are some other hand applied sheet adhesives available from Neschen: Gudy 870, and Gudy 831 that you might want to consider. There is also technical data about these products and their compatability with photography available from Neschen. Warning...they are NOT positionable. Once contact is made, they are stuck.
Getting a perfect mount with glossy stock is near to impossible.
Without proper technology and equipment the prospects of this job being a nice one are greatly dimenished...more nightmarish.

I checked into getting a roller press at one of the trade shows. I found them to be cost prohibative for the volume I would be doing. Perhaps the volume of this job would justify that kind of investment. They also have a fairly large footprint requirement; basically twice the size of the largest piece you plan to do. They come in many sizes, some heated, some cold only.
 
Read this thread...

....for the answers you are looking for.


Bottom line - you cannot do this properly and professionally by hand, regardless of the materials you use. You need to invest in some rollers.

This company sells affordable, professional rollers which can do the job - Daige Inc

They are called the Quikmount III Rollers.

Cheers,

Jared Davis
 
I’m afraid I have to disagree with Jared. I believe that you can do an excellent mounting job with a dry mount press.

Especially with glossy photos where one molecule of crud can louse up your mounting, we sweep the photo and substrate with a Swiffer® before dusting them with a draftsman's brush. The Swiffers get up grains of grit that the brush often misses.

During the mounting process we pad the platen with a sheet of photo board (which I cannot find in the catalogs anymore).

From bottom to top the layers in the dry mount press are: substrate, dm tissue, photo, release paper, then the photo board, although a sheet of smooth 4 or 6 ply museum rag board would probably do as well.

We seldom have problems.
 
We use release board instead of release paper. You can get this from Don Mar. We buy 40x60 sheets and cut in half. Before that we used to use matboard.
 
maybe I'm showing my stupidity here, but why are you mounting them Is customer not framing them?

If "no" then that's one issue. If they are framing them, why permanently mount in the first place? We are now doing about 12 hi gloss huge photos printed on metallic-type paper and we're just using archival linen tape to attach to 8 ply backig board. Not using heat, not using glue or any other type adhesives.

That said, if they're just gonna be mounted,what about Perfect Mount? Just guessing but no one's mentioned that yet.

And who the heck's DPatullo; he's member 29, so been around since the G just started. With 154 posts, he's GOTTA be the supreme older "lurker"
(JUST KIDDING by the way. Nice to see an older G who's not too verbose)
 
Mike, These may be framed someday, but my client is a photo lab and they sell much of their stuff mounted on Gator or Sintra. They are only looking to have them mounted.

I have been looking into roller presses. Anyone out there use one they would recommend?
 
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