Basically my method is based on that of the Seal company who
makes the dry mounting presses. I do change a couple of things.
1, you need: the press.
2, a flat heat absorbent board. Seal made one of heavy aluminum
but a piece of half or thee quarter inch plywood works.
First step is to flatten and dry the print. The idea is to
equalize the moisture in the support and emulsion. You can
probably dispense with this for RC prints.
Drying is done with several sheets of mounting board. First
dry them out in the press for a few minutes until they are dry.
Then make a sandwich of the print with a couple of boards
under it and a sheet of release tissue over it and then another
board over that. You may want to use a sheet of dried, heavy
construction (Kraft) paper over the release tissue to insure a
smooth surface. The put this sandwich into the press for a few
minutes with the press closed but not locked. When you remove it
place the entire sandwich under the flat board or aluminum sheet
and leave it until cool. It should come out perfectly flat.
Now, take the print, which should NOT be trimmed at this
point, and tack a sheet of dry mounting tissue at one short edge.
Do NOT tack by making an X in the middle as shown by Kodak, that
will insure getting wrinkles in the final mount.
The dry mounting tissue should be slightly larger than the print.
Now, when you have the tissue tacked to the print make a
sandwich of this with a sheet of release tissue on both sides.
Place this between a couple of sheets of dried mounting board and
put in the press. Lock the press and leave long enough to fuse
the tissue. Remove and place the sandwich under the flat board
until cool. You will now have a sandwich of the print and
mounting tissue which should be perfectly flat, smooth and
without any ripples or wrinkles in it.
Now, trim the entire assembly to size using a trimmer or
other method if you prefer (I find the trimmer easiest).
Now, take the board you want to use for the final mount and
dry it in the press, again sandwich it between two other boards
that have already been dried and flattened. Again, place this in
the press with the press closed but not locked for a few minutes
(maybe three minutes) and then place it under the flat board
(this gets a lot of use) until cooled.
Now align the print with the tissue on it on the mount and
using a tacking iron and a couple of layers of release tissue
tack it along one edge. Now cover the emulsion side with release
tissue and a sheet of dry Kraft paper and another mounting board
as a cushion and put another sheet of dry mounting board under it
and place the assembly in the press and lock the press down. Cook
it long enough to fuse the tissue. Then remove the assembly and
place it under the flat weight until cool.
The result should be a perfectly flat and smooth mounting
with no leakage at the edges. It will be permanent.
It sounds like more work than it is.
If you prefer an "archival" mount using for instance archival
hinge material you can still use part of the process to dry and
flatten the print and mounting material. Of course, if you use
that kind of mount you can make a matt or mask to overlie the
print and eliminate the need to trim it. The final visible image
being controlled by the window in the mask.
Actually, when carefully done dry mounting is about as
archival is you can get however, it has the disadvantage that its
difficult to remove the print if anything happens to it.
The dry mounting technique I described will work on material
other than photographs provided they will withstand the heat and
pressure. I like it because I get very smooth prints with no
irregularities on the surface. However, at least a part of this
is from the drying and pressing technique.
That's what I have. No magic.
BTW, I found some mounted prints I did in highschool
something like sixty-five years ago that are still perfect. They
were mounted with a flat iron!! I had no idea of what I was doing.
On 3/11/2021 6:07 PM, Michael Healy (Redacted sender
fourbyfiveguy for DMARC) wrote:
Hi Richard. I dry mount. Also I encourage the practice among my students (a number of whom are **younger**!).Any details you can offer would be greatly appreciated!
Mike Healy
On 3/11/2021 4:03 PM, `Richard Knoppow wrote:
I have many dry mounted prints older than this. All are sold. I think the technique of dry mounting is very important. At some point I wrote a procedure, not sure I ever posted it anywhere. It was back in the Usenet days.
I have mounted both fiber and RC prints with equal success. Its important to dry and flatten fiber prints before mounting them. Also, the technique Kodak taught in their old books is plain wrong.
If anyone is interested I will do into detail but am not sure how much dry mounting is done these days.
FWIW the method of drying and flattening using the dry mount press works very well for using mounting hinges.
On 3/11/2021 2:25 PM, Lew Schwartz wrote:
I had a dry mounted print framed similarly. After about 15 yrs, it developed several slightly raised bubbles, I assume due to different expansion/contraction rates & possibly the top layer of the mounting board pulling away from its substrate. Hinged mount would have been better imo, especially since there's no way to fix the permanent dry mount I had used.
On Wed, Mar 10, 2021, 12:46 AM Russ Gorman <russgorman@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:russgorman@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
Janet,
I have two dry-mounted silver fiber prints hanging in my
bathroom.
Aluminum foil across the back of the mount board and
wrapped around the edge of the front mat (kept in place
with tape optionally) then placed in aluminum frames with
glazing. You can sprinkle dessicant in behind the bottom of
the print if you want but I didn't do that with these.(or I
guess you could place small pack in back of frame.) You can
also glue a second seal of paper across the back of the
frame if you think you need better protection.
I have had prints in my bathroom for about 6 years now with
no ill effects.
On Mar 8, 2021, at 6:44 PM, Janet Gable Cull
<janetgcull@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:janetgcull@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
I would like to frame and hang a black-and-white print in
the bathroom but it gets pretty steamy in there. Is there
a way to frame a print so that moisture doesn't get
between the glass? Thanks!
Janet Gable Cull
Sent from my iPhone
=============================================================================================================
To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.
