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Author Topic: Print Mounting  (Read 6925 times)

bill t.

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #20 on: January 05, 2015, 03:52:21 pm »

They're made by the boatload, each time by a different, lowest bidding factory in China.  It's a shot in the dark.  If you stumble upon a good one, but two and keep one as a backup.

If you plan to mount a few prints per year, work by hand.  You may lose a few prints.

If you plan to mount a few tens of prints per years, buy a cheap press.  You'll probably make up the cost of the press in media that is not trashed by bad hand mounting.

If you're in production, buy a good, heat assisted press in the $4K+ range.  Make sure there is a good stock of replacement parts warehoused in your home country.

Get a press that is wider than your media by at least 3 or 4 inches.  It's kinda dicey to get a 24" by 72" pano through the ubiquitous 25 presses on ebay.  But it can be done, I'm just too lazy to build the kind of straight edge guide that should be sticking out the front.

I ruined my 39" press buy running a piece Dibond with a rather minor but sharp burr on the edge.  The tiny cut grew rapidly in a very big one.  One must treat roller presses with care.

My 25" press that has been sitting idle for about a year has started to develop longitudinal cracks in both rollers.  Must be the humidity, or maybe the use of cheap-as-dirt materials in manufacturing.  The rollers are the Achilles heals of these things.

I used a large, high quality press a few years ago.  I have to say a real, professional grade, motor operated press is miles ahead of any of the cheap, manually cranked press I have ever seen or used.  And a footswitch makes it a one-man operation.  If I bought one again, it would have a heated top roller and at least one tensioned laminate feed roller
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Peter McLennan

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #21 on: January 05, 2015, 05:08:14 pm »

If you plan to mount a few prints per year, work by hand.  You may lose a few prints.
That'd be me.  I'd have to lose at least ten prints to pay the cost of a roller.
Quote
If you're in production, buy a good, heat assisted press in the $4K+ range.
I noticed in one of the videos that you need at least 25C room temperatures for those pre-glued media.
The heated rollers you mention make sense now.

As usual, Bill, superb.  Thanks.
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Richard.Wills

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #22 on: January 05, 2015, 05:29:16 pm »

Have another look a the Zenith Video - they're not selling a cheap option, but it is far from production level (IMHO).
If you want a super gloss, or no surface texture then you need an absolutely flat substrate = Aluminium / DiBond / cast acrylic / glass. Needs a polyester (facemount) adhesive, and a print media with a polyester base.  Perfectly possible to mount mirror-glossy prints without getting any ripples or defects in the surface.
I have no doubt that some of the auction site laminators are of questionable quality. As with tripods, sooner or later you buy one which lasts for the rest of your life... etc... I wouldn't buy a cheap BNW car - would you?
Ten prints, plus cost of substrates, plus time. OK, for a few prints a year, I might accept being hit and miss in my work.

For £400, I'd buy a Drytac Jet mount, or Zenith handCrank, and not need to feel bad about about the majority of my prints looking second rate. Factor in a few dozen rolls of film cost (plus processing) for the learning curve of how the process is actually done.

Then be happy and proud.

Before I knew better (and before people paid me to), I tried and made a reasonable job of doing things without machines. Now I've seen the difference, I'd never go back.
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bill t.

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #23 on: January 05, 2015, 08:34:44 pm »

The lamination press in the video appears to have the same metal and plastic parts and the same mechanical design that I see on my super cheap versions.  However, the rollers are much larger in diameter and appear to be of a different material.  I believe larger and perhaps softer rollers have some advantage and this may be an up-market version of the cheaper machines.  Most of the professional machines I have seen have rollers somewhere around 4 to 5 inches, 100 to 125mm. IIRC my cheap rollers are more like 60mm.  There are exceptions, the low end Drytac Jetmounter machines have relatively small diameter rollers.

There are probably numerous versions and knock-offs of knock-off out there in the world of laminating presses.  There's one company in Germany that offers a modified version with a roll capability added that would be very useful, but the price is pretty high.
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framah

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #24 on: January 06, 2015, 10:01:13 am »

Well, my old refrigerator would look a lot better with just about anything stuck to it.

What do you do, Framah?

Well.. Kooltack is a product that is dibond  with an adhesive coating. Personally, i have never had to mount a glossy ink jet print as no one has ever brought me one, but that is what i'd use if it did come in. It requires a heat press but the time and temp is lower than other mounting adhesives.

The last glossy prints I ever did were Ilfachromes and because they are a polyester base, they can be static mounted to plexi and the mat holds it down at the edges.

I think you are on to something with your refrigerator!! Just cover the whole thing with your images and make a really "Cool" collage!! ;D
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bill t.

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #25 on: January 06, 2015, 02:21:01 pm »

What framah is talking about with "static mounting" is that you frame the piece with the print hinge mounted, cover it with plex, and then rub your cat up against the front of the plexi whenever the print starts to ripple.
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framah

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #26 on: January 06, 2015, 05:50:49 pm »

Oh, Bill!!! you so funny!! ;D

EVERYONE knows that you need more than one cat...preferably declawed.

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Peter McLennan

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #27 on: January 07, 2015, 11:39:39 am »

EVERYONE knows that you need more than one cat...preferably declawed.

Never!  Responsible vets refuse to declaw cats nowadays.  It's unspeakably cruel. How would you like to have your fingers amputated?

You do, however need more than one cat

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framah

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #28 on: January 07, 2015, 01:01:33 pm »

I was imagining him being shredded from trying to rub cats on... anything! ;D
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Peter McLennan

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Re: Print Mounting
« Reply #29 on: January 07, 2015, 01:48:16 pm »

Ah.  Declawed so they won't scratch the plexi.  Ok, then.  :) Sorry if I overreacted.

I did manage to squeak a cat pix on to the forum, though. :)
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