Opinions Wanted Spray Adhesives!

Create a Post
E

Ella

Grumbler in Training
Joined
Apr 3, 2012
Posts
2
Hey! I'm new to the forum, and am seeking opinions. I work in mounting and laminating and we often come across mounted prints/photos in which the corners have lifted(either from the substrate or paper layers peeling), or corners have folded when pressed. I try to save the images by pressing it back down and re-laminating, but by using an adhesive film or tissue. I'm looking into using a spray adhesive instead. Often with film or tissue a line is still visible where the film/tissue ends. Has anyone out there used spray adhesives for this type of situation? Pro's or con's? I've looked at a few products such as 3M Super77 and the Krylon Adhesive spray. I don't work in the most ventilated area, so that's an issue, but it would only be on the occasion of this happening...

Any thoughts??
Thanks!!
Ella
 
Spray adhesives are toxic, their bond is prone to eventual failure, and they have the least precisely controllable application. The absolute wrong product for the situation you describe.
You might experiment (on your own items) with acrylic gel medium. It is stable and effective, dries clear, and can be applied with any size brush. It has the added advantage of being heat re-activatable, so you can either apply it and weight in place, or let it dry and then use a tacking iron to achieve the final bond.

:cool: Rick
 
Spray adhesives are best regarded as a temporary thing. You need an enormous amount of pressure to get them to bond and the timing in letting the solvent flash off is quite critical and therefore important to spray an even coating - which in practice is almost impossible. The result is that parts of the paper will bond more firmly than others, hence localised lifting later on. Particularly around the edges as you observe. If you consolidate the bond with a hand roller the bond is going to be very inconsistent no matter how hard you try.
The big snag is that the parts that do stick well stick very well which makes separating the paper from the substrate a pain. Plus, when you do get it off you are faced with removing the old glue before you can remount it.

All in all - ditch it. :icon11:
 
Besides the difficulty of controlling a spray when working on the artwork face-up, the main issue is the toxicity of all spray adhesives. Many of our fellow framers have various levels of lung damage from our extended use of spray adhesives during the 1980s.

I recommend either acrylic gel, or Fusion 4000, which has no carrier, so it is solid adhesive which won't leave a line.

And Welcome, Ella, to the Grumble! You'll like hanging out here!
 
Welcome, Ella.

As others have noted, spray adhesives have a poor reputation among framers, because there is a better adhesive for almost any need.

Yes, the sprays' solvents are chemically toxic, but also, the overspray particulate gets into your lungs and never comes out. Sprays are the least-permanent adhesives commonly available for framing applications - dry mounting, wet mounting, and mechanical mounting are all better choices. Sprays are generally the framer's most expensive adhesives, too.

Many of us have seen spray adhesives fail, and most of the failures you experience, which inspired this thread, probably were spray-adhesive mounts. In that case, applying more spray adhesive would be a temporary fix, at best.

The problem with using a different adhesive to repair a failed adhesive mount is that you have no way to know about the compatibility of the two adhesives. That is, the new adhesive might not bond to the old adhesive's residue, assuring early failure for the repaired mount.

The best action would be to reproduce the image on a new substrate and start over with all-new materials. That way, you know exactly what you are dealing with.

Or, if the image can not be replaced, or duplicated by scanning/photographing & printing, then do your best to remove the entire mount, remove the adhesive residue, and mount it to a new substrate with a new adhesive. On the few occasions when I have had to do that, I have used heat activated adhesive applied to foam board, such as my favorite dry mounting substrate, Kool Tack.
 
The advantage of using spray adhesives is that your manicurist will love you as you visit her weekly!

:icon21:

Welcome to the "G", Ella!
 
pumpkincart.JPG

This is one time as an Artist I found using a spray adhesive when framing my work to be valuable...it not only adhered my work but gave it the marble-ized backdrop I was looking for before framing out with the colors I had chose. ..I did a country set of 2 and was pleased with the finish.


HPIM1873.jpg
 
I'm trying to salvage a Cibachrome right now that the photgrapher framed himself. Glued to a thin sheet of vinyl(??) then that was stuck to a piece of foamcore with spraymount of some sort. Both adhesives have failed to a degree. The foamcore I was able to remove but the other isn't coming off without damaging the print. It's actually slumped so it's wavy. Of course he can't find the original slide to reprint. So I would not use spray glue.
 
I use an acrylic based spray adhesive which I apply by spraygun, position the artwork by hand then finish them off in a vacuum press.

One thing I learned early is that contact adhesives are effective only on porous papers like prints and posters and are useless on resin coated photographic paper, laminated paper or (God forbid even trying this) Cibacrome's polymer. These must be mounted by cold lamination onto a substrate like Kapamount or Gatorboard.

Naturally, this treatment is used only for cheapie open edition prints and posters or poor quality canvases which have no monetary or collectible value.

The particular product I use is actually sold as an "insulation adhesive" and holds pretty well but I have noticed, when deframing work done a few years ago that the bond does weaken with age. My conservator tells me that, should delamination be necessary, it is fairly easily done with a contact adhesive. Something stuck with P.V.A., on the other hand, is very difficult to delaminate and the glue penetrates the paper making it impervious to cleaning solutions.
 
artfolio said:
...The particular product I use is actually sold as an "insulation adhesive" and holds pretty well but I have noticed, when deframing work done a few years ago that the bond does weaken with age. My conservator tells me that, should delamination be necessary, it is fairly easily done with a contact adhesive. Something stuck with P.V.A., on the other hand, is very difficult to delaminate and the glue penetrates the paper making it impervious to cleaning solutions.
Click to expand...

The ease or difficulty of reversing the mount surely is a consideration, but so is chemistry. The problem with most contact adhesives is that most framers have no way to know what chemicals are in them.

In the closed environment of a frame, invasive or reactive chemicals could affect the art's media, substrate, and maybe other framing materials. Chemical reactions inside the frame possibly could account for fading, color shift, discoloration, embrittlement, or disintegration of art or frame parts, especially if light exposure, elevated humidity, or elevated temperatures are involved.

What may appear to be 'natural aging' might be retarded or competely prevented by the use of inert and long-term stable framing materials - including the adhesives.
 
Opinions Wanted Spray Adhesives!

I once had an employee call OSHA on me (long story....he had issues) for UnSeal.....OSHA was went nuts over the use of Sprayed adhesives (which we barely used)....if you don't care about your lungs, go ahead....otherwise, find something else. It doesn't stick worth a darn anyhow, as others have told you. In 17 years, I would say 95% of the failed adhesives we have seen appear to be sprayed adhesives.

We find that we can use Speedmount or Kooltack (I know, I know they are different products but I find that they both work great) can be used in almost every permanent mount situation. That and Frank's Fabric adhesive, which we use for fabrics as well as adhering matboards to foamcore for making shadowbox sides, are about the only adhesives we used for mounting any more.

I do have a couple of rolls of the AUM products which I use occassionally, usually only when I reach for piece of oversize Speedmount/Kooltack and realize I am out of it.

Good luck
 
Having rubbished spray glues I would add that there is one application where I have found it useful. Fixing strips of decorative paper to mats. Not that I have done any lately. (That look seemed to die out with the Yuppies. ;)) But I found an old mat that I did about 20 years ago and the spraymounted strips were still stuck fast. BUT, they were only 1/4" wide and it's easy to get hard pressure on a small area. I burnished over them with an agate though release paper. No way could I have stuck them with 'wet' glue and not got oozes out the side.
 
Specialty Tapes make a special transfer adhesive (D991) that is perfect for adhering decorative papers and the like. You might check to see if Lion carries it over there. Or, for narrow strips, a glue stick might work well and is less messy than wet glue. Of course there is always acrylic gel medium, which could be brushed onto the reverse of the strips, allowed to dry, and then ironed into place with a tacking iron.
:cool: Rick
 
Thank you!

Just wanted to say thanks for everyone's opinions!! I feel so welcomed!
I'll definitely be looking into using something different. I've used Fusion 4000 and have enjoyed everything about it, so perhaps
I'll see how that works!!
Thanks again for all the wise words!
 
Rick Granick said:
Of course there is always acrylic gel medium, which could be brushed onto the reverse of the strips, allowed to dry, and then ironed into place with a tacking iron.:cool: Rick
Click to expand...

This is worth repeating. Thank you, Rick.

For some projects, liquid acrylic medium might work better, since it is watery and would probably be easier to brush onto narrow strips of paper or detailed shapes. Like the gel, let it dry and activate its bond using an iron.

Or, for something like marbled paper strips applied to a mat, just tack the intersections and stick it in the dry mount press for a few minutes, then cool under weight.
 
This is a timely thread, which brings up a question: if all one has is a vacuum press (no heat), what are your recommendations for wet-mounting adhesives? A buddy of mine in town has just gotten his very own wide-format printer and is advertising printing and mounting services. When I saw his flyer I thought I saw a whole bunch of spray cans on the shelf next to the printer. Sure enough when I paid him a visit today I caught a whiff of the unmistakable odor of spray mount. He said he bought his setup used and got two cases of Super 77 along with the printer and mounting press.

Coincidentally, just the day before I'd finished up un-doing a failed spray mount by a photographer (the customer bought the prints already matted and I framed them, a few months later he comes back because they're buckled. It was a learning experience). I told my buddy that 3M sprays come highly DISrecommended for mounting, and he wanted to know what would be a good alternative...
 
jim_p said:
This is a timely thread, which brings up a question: if all one has is a vacuum press (no heat), what are your recommendations for wet-mounting adhesives? A buddy of mine in town has just gotten his very own wide-format printer and is advertising printing and mounting services.
Click to expand...

A lot of framers use fabric glues for vacuum-wet mounting, and some of them might work on non-porous surfaces, such as coated printing papers. SureMount and VacuGlue 300 are the two wet-mounting adhesives I usually use, but neither of them works well on photos and other non-porous surfaces.

If I were your buddy, I would get a dry mount press ASAP and mount to Kool Tack foam boards, using a Perma-Lon Release Board. One of their three pre-applied dry mounting adhesives would be right for almost any substrate that coms out of a digital printer.

I told my buddy that 3M sprays come highly DISrecommended for mounting, and he wanted to know what would be a good alternative...
Click to expand...
It isn't only a 3M issue. Regardless of brand, all spray adhesives have the same problems. Avoid them all.


(I am a satisfied user and occasional consultant to Kool Tack.)
 
I have to agree about the Kool Tack. I used to hate dry mounting. I used tissue and mounted to mat board. Then in recent years with most items being digitally printed and heat sensitive, I got antsy about bubbling or melting things in the press, so I used self adhesive boards, mostly Crescent PSX ($$) or Elmer's Hi-Tack foamboard (which works well, and which I still do use for certain applications). However, I've begun using Kool Tack foam board at a low enough temp. that I don't worry about it, and a dwell time of about 20 seconds. It works like a charm. Honestly, it's almost fun. Brilliant product, and very cost-effective too. (No, I don't work for them :icon11:)
:cool: Rick
 
Just to clear up a point of difference.

I use a spray adhesive and apply a thick, even covering to the substrate with a proper spraygun attached to my compressor.

This is in no way the same thing as those Mickey-Mouse spray cans sold in craft shops. You would need a whole can of that stuff to mount one decent-sized print or poster and the bond would definitely be suspect. Definitely a hobbyist-only product.
 
artfolio said:
Just to clear up a point of difference.

I use a spray adhesive and apply a thick, even covering to the substrate with a proper spraygun attached to my compressor.

This is in no way the same thing as those Mickey-Mouse spray cans sold in craft shops. You would need a whole can of that stuff to mount one decent-sized print or poster and the bond would definitely be suspect. Definitely a hobbyist-only product.
Click to expand...


Such I took to be the case. It's not the fact that the adhesive is sprayed, more the adhesive in the MM cans. :thumbsup:
 
artfolio said:
I use a spray adhesive and apply a thick, even covering to the substrate with a proper spraygun attached to my compressor.
Click to expand...
I'm sure your application method is superior to what comes out of an aerosol can, and it seems sensible that it would assure a more durable bond. But bond strength is only one of several issues with spray adhesives.

Is your spray adhesive solvent-based? If so, then the vapors would probably still be toxic. If it is water-based, then the vapors would probably not be toxic.

What about the particulate overspray? Do you have an effective way to contain it and keep it out of the air - and out of your lungs? Regardless of the propellant or the chemistry of the adhesive, if any of it gets carried into your lungs by the air you breathe, that would be a serious health problem.
 
Jim Miller said:
I'm sure your application method is superior to what comes out of an aerosol can, and it seems sensible that it would assure a more durable bond. But bond strength is only one of several issues with spray adhesives.

Is your spray adhesive solvent-based? If so, then the vapors would probably still be toxic. If it is water-based, then the vapors would probably not be toxic.

What about the particulate overspray? Do you have an effective way to contain it and keep it out of the air - and out of your lungs? Regardless of the propellant or the chemistry of the adhesive, if any of it gets carried into your lungs by the air you breathe, that would be a serious health problem.
Click to expand...


Yep, I do my spraying standing on an outside veranda and spray into an enclosed area. The gun is set to deliver a coarse spray which looks like spider webs on the substrate. The glue itself is not aromatic and will not burn but is only soluble in turps so probably a solvent base. No fine mist to worry about but I wear a particle mask anyway just to be on the safe side.
 
Create a Post
Back
Top