foil for Dry mount matting

[bob carnie]

What type of print? this will have a big factor on which material you use.

Hi

Not sure if this is the correct sub-forum so if not, administrator please move it to the correct one

My question is, I live in the Netherlands and want to dry mount my images.
For this you need foil that will glue when getting hot under the dry mount press.
Can one tell me what foil (manufacturer and type) I need and where it is available in Europe?
This Dry-Mount method seems to be much more common in the US than in Europe.
I do have a Dry Mount Press, Bogen 510 type.

Many thanks in advance.

[MartinP]

Cold mounting is a lot less forgiving than drymounting with a heat press, and really requires its own specialized equipment. The pressure-sensitive adhesives have limited shelf life. But this is how RC papers and high-gloss color work is mounted. Not a do-it-yourself system. It's expensive, a lot can go wrong, and it can't be corrected. Small color prints can be mounted with less risk using 3M Repositionable Mounting Adhesive; but it's too weak for big prints. You also need very flat smooth substrates. Ordinary fomeboard isn't very good. Wet mounting also requires experience. Therefore, for black and white fiber-based prints, drymounting to ragboard is really the most practical and permanent option.

I certainly agree with the trickiness of manipulating the mount, adhesive film and the print. Decades ago, while working in a lab offering display/advertising mounting services, we had an enormously heavy roller-table device for arranging the three materials, up to 60" wide, and it was always a bit nerve-wracking even then.

As you wisely pointed out some time ago, the spray-mount adhesives are not very healthy and not very strong, so I looked for an alternative and found the adhesive-film pre-coated foamboard. In order to control the adhesion of the print, I rolled the release paper (covering the adhesive film on the mount) around a piece of 20mm plastic pipe for removal. In this way the release-paper could be peeled back an inch at a time, while the height of the pipe kept the prints from randomly sticking to the instant adhesive. Smoothing and adhering of the print was done manually, also an inch at a time, using a cotton pad.

Two years ago I mounted two dozen, borderless, 50cm colour prints in this way, for a tiny-budget exhibition that was hung twice in a marquee(!). The prints have all stayed on the backing but some pictures (on a cheaper order of foamboard) are now a little bowed, presumably from the dampness at night. The 'customer' charity was happy with the results and so was I, but this is not something for a more formal 'museum' sort of exhibition! Anything larger than these prints and there would probably be some wastage - or at least another pair of hands would be needed, plus some sort of back-frame to keep the foamboard straight when hung.

[Kodak]

Thank you all for your advises and tips.
Martin thanks for the tip in the NL.
Your last advise with the tube sounds workable when you mount borderless, but I want to mount my prints not borderless so the dry mount method feels more workable.