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ljjpz1
25-Mar-2013, 05:09
Hey everyone! I just signed up to ask this question. My project involves putting a collage of photos onto a 1/4" piece of plywood, and I was wondering what glue I should use to place the photos? These were photos printed at an official photo centre, so I don't know if white glue would work or not... What do you think? I've heard of 'decoupage glue', but no where around here sells it.

C_Remington
25-Mar-2013, 07:04
What size are the photo's?

Light Guru
25-Mar-2013, 08:19
Spray mount would work fine.

Bob Salomon
25-Mar-2013, 11:37
How long do you want the prints to last?

Drew Wiley
25-Mar-2013, 11:51
How long do you want your lungs to last?

Bob Salomon
25-Mar-2013, 12:36
How long do you want your lungs to last?

You can always use a mask and proper ventilation for the spray stuff. But neither will help the print's longevity.

Brian C. Miller
25-Mar-2013, 12:48
Three Google hits (so far) for the phrase, "Hey everyone! I just signed up to ask this question." One was at a woodworking forum with the exact same text for the question.

Answer: Just about anything that's sticky will be good enough.

Light Guru
25-Mar-2013, 12:56
You can always use a mask and proper ventilation for the spray stuff. But neither will help the print's longevity.

If you were going for longevity then you probably would not be mounting onto plywood in the first-place.

ljjpz1
25-Mar-2013, 14:50
Three Google hits (so far) for the phrase, "Hey everyone! I just signed up to ask this question." One was at a woodworking forum with the exact same text for the question.

Answer: Just about anything that's sticky will be good enough.

Yeah, I made accounts on other sites posted this because I'm hoping to get the best answer possible. I want the photos to stick to the plywood for as long as possible, as this is a gift I'm making for someone. Another site said 3M spray adhesive, is that a good idea?

Im considering using crazy glue, just a dab in each corner, will that ruin it?

Light Guru
25-Mar-2013, 14:56
Another site said 3M spray adhesive, is that a good idea?

Umm yes. I already responded and said to use spray mount.



Im considering using crazy glue, just a dab in each corner, will that ruin it?

Super glue will often leave visible marks on the opposite side of the paper.

Drew Wiley
25-Mar-2013, 16:20
3M spray mount will fail after awhile. And unless you know how to rig a proper spray booth, these kinds of adhesives are indeed really bad for you. Want to be a "gluesniffer", literally? The permanent industrial types are even worse, and can outright blow you to kingdom come if your ventilation fan doesn't have an explosion-proof motor. I'd use acrylic adhesive
tabs or repositionable adhesive sheets if the prints are small. Make sure the plywood is properly surfaced and sized, dead flat, and that any primers or whatever are fully outgassed. Wood acid bleeding through will probably ruin the prints anyway,
though white shellac primer might be successful at holding this in.

Brian C. Miller
25-Mar-2013, 20:31
Im considering using crazy glue, just a dab in each corner, will that ruin it?

The best route would be to first prepare the plywood with something that will be utterly neutral. If you don't do that, then you can expect that what the chemicals in the plywood, by themselves, will mess up the photographs. A photographic varnish would be the best, and would seal the wood, and then you could put down your photographs, and seal them to the surface.

Like all varnishes, the stuff has serious vapors during application, so you'd have to do it in a painting closet or other dust-free, high-ventilation area.

An alternative is Liquitex (http://www.dickblick.com/products/liquitex-acrylic-polymer-varnishes/), which appears to be a bit different, and may be less hazardous during application. You'll need a spray gun for it, though.

Jim Jones
26-Mar-2013, 06:38
Liquitex may not adhere adequately to the resin coating on the backs of many photographs. I use some of their products for adhering fiber material.

Bob Salomon
26-Mar-2013, 06:54
Whenever I had to mount to glass, foam, canvas, wood, metal, etc. I used an Ademco hard bed press with their laminate materials. The bottom laminate was/is a double sided adhesive on an archival quality plastic sheet and the top layer was the same plastic with a single adhesive coating. This stuff would conform to the contours of the material you mounted it to and since it set up a solid barrier between the mounting substrate and the print it offered superior protection against damage from the acids or materials in the substrate. The top layer could be a gloss finish - if a silicon cover sheet was covering it during mounting - or textured if the foam cover material was in direct contact with it. If you crumpled a piece of large cellophane and flattened out over the top material and then put the foam on top of it you would get a reticulated finish. It was also very easy to peel the emulsion off of a RC print with the cover material adhered on it and transfer that to a textured base material like foam, canvas or wood.

Ademco inveted the dry mounting tissue a long, long time ago. Over the years they were on their own, bouht other mounting companies and was merged in to others. Currently they may be part of Seal. Or they could be out of business. As they were based out of the UK someone there might know.

Drew Wiley
26-Mar-2013, 08:20
There are certainly drymount tissues which would do the job, Bob, but would the wood finish survive the heat without outassing all kinds of crud and outright peeling? Maybe some of these baked-on clear ceramic finishes on pricey finish ply
might take the heat OK. I don't know, and even though Il've got stacks of the stuff, I'm not going to mess around with
anything like that in my own drymount press. I've done experiements in the past with certain gess-like coatings to see if they
will aborb enough water to use water-based adhesive like Seal Vaccu-Mount. The answer is yes, but I never got good enough
at it to create a smooth visual surface - would have to find some more sanding additive (and I outright sell some of the best
sanding gear made). Gave up on all this a long time ago. Ordinary MacTac or Seal permanent adhesive foils would work fine,
but these need proper equipment and training, and have zero forgiveness. Can't imagine their use in a collage.

Vaughn
26-Mar-2013, 08:44
My question would be why plywood?

There is Gatorboard or painted aluminum as possibilities.

Drew Wiley
26-Mar-2013, 10:41
If this were temporary it's a piece of cake. Just get prefinished ply and some repositionable ATG tape. Once you starting thinking in terms of that spooky word, "permanent", the whole nature of the game changes.