What would you recommend as a dry mount system

[drchevalier]

I have not done dry mounting since high school, which was, a very long time ago.  When I mount today, either to foam core or mounting board, I have been using 3M photo adhesive, and a hard roller.  No problems so far and it works, so long as I get the amount of adhesive correct.

I was at my friend Mark's home last month and he has a dry mount press that looks identical to my memory of the one from the AV dept in school.  He said it was hard to find.  I am sure (hopeful?) that dry mount is still a thing and would appreciate guidance and recommendations on sellers and products.

Thank you all for your time.

Ross Chevalier

[snappingsam]

You have to be careful - heat mounting & laminating is OK for HP and Canon but not Epson.

You've not said which country you are in - Drytac and Hotpress are the two names I know - I use both hot and cold laminating/pressure mounting.

Cold laminating & mounting can be used for all printers and substrates - the simplest equipment is simply a pair or rubber covered rollers - 3 in in diameter - but most people opt for a motorised roller set about 5 in diameter.  Its a fairly quick system that will let you mount up to the width of the rollers by any practical length.

Hot laminating and mounting either uses a soft or more commonly hard bed press - and most often these days a vacuum press. The Vacuum press is limited to board smaller than the machine - the hardened can take unmounted material to all sides....

[Peter McLennan]

I'm in the same boat.  I had good experience with drymounting back in the day, but that was with conventional photo papers.  A friend had a Seal Commercial 210, a 16X20 press, sitting in his basement and agreed to share it. He's using spray glue, too, with good results, but only in small sizes. He had problems mounting the new plastic coated media and gave up on the press.

I want to do up to 40" on to gatorboard.  After I do a few tests, I'll report back. 

So far, this is on the purchase horizon:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B015RMS9MQ/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1WCEA3DWLFV89&coliid=IXURLMIFJ2LQK

[Peter McLennan]

snappingsam, what's the problem with Epson prints?  The media?  Or the inks?

[datro]

Prints from Epson printers can definitely be dry mounted.  Do it all the time on my Seal Commercial 210M.

[deanwork]

What can you use with that tissue for a 30x40 and larger print?

Prints from Epson printers can definitely be dry mounted.  Do it all the time on my Seal Commercial 210M.

[datro]

What can you use with that tissue for a 30x40 and larger print?

John,

Not sure if you are asking me or Peter who pointed to some mounting tissue on Amazon in an earlier post.

In any case, I mount using ColorMount tissue which I've used for many years.  (It was good enough for Ansel  .)  Typically I'm mounting Hahnemuhle Harman Gloss Baryta and any of the Canson Fine Art Papers (both Matte and Baryta/Platine).  I don't remember the last time I mounted any RC-based paper.  Although my 210 press has only a 18.5" x 23" platen, I can do larger prints in sections, being careful to have a top and bottom board that are the same size as the board I'm mounting to (ensures you don't get creases pressed into your mount board from the edges of the top board in the sandwich.)  The literature for the 210 press says you can process board up to 36" wide.  The largest I've mounted is a print on 29" x 36" board, done in four passes in the press with about a 25% overlap.  The trick with dry mounting is to develop a careful process that eliminates moisture in the boards and print, and is properly timed with the right temperature for the tissue being used.  It is a process that must be calibrated to get reliable results.

I've not had to do it yet, but if I had a need to mount something larger than the above, I'd farm it out to a framer with a vacuum table press.  I think for a 30x40 print on even larger mat board the vacuum press is the only way to go if you want to dry mount.  I think the largest vacuum press made by D&K is 48" x 96".

Dave

Edited to correct the size of the largest D&K vacuum press.

[Peter McLennan]

Thanks, Dave.  I've written to D&K, asking for more data on the "New Technology Mounting Tissue".  Your experience with your 210 is encouraging. Thanks for the tip on multi-pass mounting. Keeping the entire sandwich the same dimensions makes perfect sense.
P

[Wayne Fox]

Prints from Epson printers can definitely be dry mounted.  Do it all the time on my Seal Commercial 210M.

been heat mounting epson prints for over a decade. I’ve never heard anyone claim this was a problem for epson prints.

[deanwork]

Thanks Dave,

I have the same size Seal dry mount press that you have. I have the older version and it works like new and is built like a tank. I use it for flattening prints.

I will try doing a test of 30x40 print on Platine using the Seal Dry Mount tissue. I realize the Color Mount can be used for fiber papers, but wasn't it designed for rc media with a lower heat melting point? I used to use the Seal MT5 for my dry mounting of silver prints back in the mid 70s and wouldn't you know it, not a singe one has delaminated or stained the edges of the prints. They are perfect. As are Ansels portfolios at the Center For Creative Photography in Tucson. And I have moved them from 4 different states and climates. Seal Good.

I also used to use a dry mount tissue called Ademco. Now that stuff was like the old original Seal tissue. It was clear as apposed to yellowish like the later Seal tissues were. I used the Ademco because it was used by major framers ( at the time ) for doing multi-dimensional mounting, like dry mounting one board to another, and actually dry mounting prints to other prints, etc. Now with that stuff once it was down, it was down. No putting it under high heat and peeling the print off. I will never come up. I'm going to check to see if it is still available. My old prints from 1976 still look perfect, but then so do the seal mt5 prints. I only used Color Mount for color c prints and they are still mounted too, just faded like hell.

I'm going to get back into thermo plastic dry mounting for my pieces that are going into shadow boxes. I miss doing that. I wish I had a press that would do 40x60s but that isn't going to happen. Even if they made one I couldn't afford it.  I'm also wanting to mount to 4 ply rag board and then glue that to aluminum with polyvinyl acetate glue. I still don't trust that vacuum press stuff for the very long term of my carbon pigment prints. It seems to me that as long as it has been around someone should have provided us data about it's longevity. I've also seen many cases where the vacuum mount prints have delaminated. That's not good.

john