Float mounting technique

[Ryan Mack]

For Mother’s Day I decided to try printing my wife's choice of John J. Audubon's Birds of America illustrations. They are available in high resolution free for personal use on the National Audubon society's web site. This was also an excuse to try printing on deckle-edge paper and float mounting. The frames took some time to be delivered so I just finished framing them. Here’s the finished set. Next weekend they will be hung on the wall along our stairway.

Normally I dry-press mount my artwork to keep it perfectly flat. But this is float mounted so there's an extra piece of mat board just smaller than the picture between it and the colored mat. If I press that, I think I would end up with creases visible on the artwork where it overhangs the edge of that hidden piece of mat. So I ended up using art tape to tape the paper to the hidden mat, and again the hidden mat to the colored mat. It wasn't double sided tape so I had to use tape crosses (one piece flipped and held down by the other).
With all that tape the artwork was no longer laying perfectly flat, so I'm kind of relying on the glass to keep the paper flat. Any bowing in the paper is visible in the shadow it casts because it's floated. Also, with the extra mat and all that tape in there, I'm not sure the 1/8" spacers I bought are actually big enough to separate the paper, especially since it isn't staying perfectly flat, so I left the spacers out.

The good news is that it's printed on matte paper and I'm not seeing any weird effect from it contacting the plexi. They also had a full 2+ weeks to off-gas so I'm hoping nothing is going to cloud up the plexi.
Honestly this was an experiment for me, and I'm happy it turned out as well as it did. If you have any ideas on how to improve the process (like not needing 16 tiny pieces of tape for each picture) I'm all ears.

[Ferp]

Also interested, as this is something I've wanted to do, but couldn't find any info on the finer points of float mounting.  I get the basics, but not the detail.

[MDL_SD]

Having the surface directly on the glass/plexi is not a good idea.  You will potentially get condensation on the print and you will get a ghosting/transfer of the image to the glass/plexi.  Floated sheets are never perfectly flat and that is part of the character from floating.

Good luck,

[Alistair]

These look great. I love this look and it really suits these particular images.

[vikcious]

Having the surface directly on the glass/plexi is not a good idea.  You will potentially get condensation on the print and you will get a ghosting/transfer of the image to the glass/plexi.  Floated sheets are never perfectly flat and that is part of the character from floating.

Good luck,

Good point! I guess the presented samples are not what floating mount, per se. Real floating mount should well.. float... like there must be an equal (usually but not necessarily) distance to the glass in front as it is to the framed picture too. Indeed the picture should by no means touch the front glass. In principle the mounting should be simple since a piece or foam-board or smth similar is used as a spacer, between the picture and the background. The background can be pretty much everything, from a good quality passepartout to plain photo paper.
The most meaningful part of the setup is the inside spacer frame that has to assure the proper distance of the whole floating setup to the front, to the glass.
Usually I use (for frames where I know the exact size and frame depth) either wood (painted in neutral, water based colors - black or white) or simple foamboard stripes.

Something of this style...