Adapting Premo plate carriers for film/paper negatives

[Voodoo Bill]

Hi All,
I picked up a couple of Premo half plate carriers to use for an old Century Grand that I've refurbished but the card that sits at the centre has become warped with age. Two of them aren't so bad but the third is really pretty terrible. They are the type that have a thin slip-out metal frame either side that, I'm assuming, the plates would have sat in. I've been hand cutting paper negatives that are held neatly by the flanges, top and bottom, of the frames and that's been working well. But I was curious if I wouldn't be better off cutting out the warped centre cards entirely and trying to replace them with something else to get a flat surface and/or trying to put some thin stiff cardboard in the flanges that a paper negative can sit on top of to get a flatter surface? Has anybody had any previous experience with this type of thing? Thanks.

[Steven Tribe]

Have you thought about "steam ironing" the card? Paper and card responds well to forming under heat and moisture. I realise there is not enough room for a real iron, but you could use a heated square smooth metal block and a water spray.
I checked my Poco similar holders and they are quite perfect - the warping might be caused by damp storage at some time, rather than age.

[Voodoo Bill]

Have you thought about "steam ironing" the card? Paper and card responds well to forming under heat and moisture. I realise there is not enough room for a real iron, but you could use a heated square smooth metal block and a water spray.
I checked my Poco similar holders and they are quite perfect - the warping might be caused by damp storage at some time, rather than age.

Thanks Steven, that was an option I hadn't considered. Makes perfect sense. The frames are still good and square and, seeing as I do live in the middle of a temperate rainforest and they were sourced locally, simple damp is a very real culprit here. I'm conjecturing that maybe I could use two pre-soaked, and then heated, blocks of wood (that fit the middle with plenty of space to avoid warping the frame) and then vice it all together as a sandwich till cool might do the trick. I have access to something called a 'flash heater' at work that would heat only one side of a wood block up VERY quickly to steaming temperature without burning them or the heat even going very far into the wood.

[Steven Tribe]

Sounds OK - but remember that wood and fibres contain natural "binding" chemicals, so there will have to be a non-sticking layer. Wood is a vey poor conducter of heat so warming would have to be done by hot water or steam.