Face Mounting Harman Gloss

[Martin Miller]

Anyone know if there are any issues with face mounting Harman Gloss FB Al?

[Brian Ellis]

What's face mounting?

[Martin Miller]

What's face mounting?

Face mounting is the use of a transparent adhesive film to bond the face of a print to acrylic glazing. This is used mainly to mount large prints for display. It seems to work well for RC papers but I wondered if the ink surface of baryta papers affects the bond differently.

[David A. Goldfarb]

Face mounting is using an adhesive on the front of a print to mount it to something like acrylic or glass. It looks very slick.

[adrian tyler]

i believe chris jodan had some issues facemonting FB type papers as tiny air bubbles get trapped, i'd speak to your mounter / framer and run a test.

[Martin Miller]

Thanks, Adrian. I found Chris' post.

[Kirk Gittings]

A friend of mine in Chicago has regular issues with bubbles on glossy C prints too. Though the lab always redid it for free, they wouldn't pay for the extra print. They had a good legal disclaimer. He finally gave up on the process and that lab is now gone. Find an experienced lab that does this mounting on a regular basis and see what their policy is for redos.

[adrian tyler]

with c-prints it depends very much on the skill of the "mounter", with glossy cotton papers the surface is not as smooth as the c-print counterpart and that is where difficulties arise independently of operator skill.

[IanMazursky]

From the work i have done in the sign/large format print business, front mounting and laminating fiber based paper is very hard.
I dont mount myself anymore (lack of space) but contract it out to various experts but i did do this for awhile.

Because the surface is so porous, tiny air bubbles will form between the clear film and the print.
One way to do it is to heat the clear laminate film almost like an encapsulation mount.
You dont want to heat it too much that the laminate will warp and stretch but just enough that the laminate is extra tacky.
It works sometimes but its a hit or miss.

If you do want to try to do it, i recommend running the print through a heated laminator a bunch of times sans the laminate.
This will help remove any moisture left in the paper and even out the papers texture.
You should get much better adhesion this way. I do this on any textured paper that has to be laminated.

I once saw a perforator device that is used to put micro holes in the laminate to allow air bubbles to escape.
It is sold by Drytac. http://www.drytac.com/productcart/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=202
I have never used one but it might be the answer?

[Martin Miller]

Thanks for your thoughts, folks. Seems like face mounting is not a good option with the fiber-based papers. I sure like the intense blacks and low differential gloss of the Harman paper, but the thought of putting that super-fragile surface through the pinch rollers several times to preheat it makes my skin crawl. I think I'm going to pursue another option.