Mounting and Cutting Sintra

[PAllen]

We have been mounting inkjet prints to Sintra in our printing studio with some success and I am wondering if anybody has advice on cutting Sintra and mounting to it.

We are currently using a pressure sensitive adhesive made by www.gbc.com and a cold mount roller machine. We have had success with this adhesive for the most part, however, we have had a print or two with some bubbles (I'm guessing flaws in the adhesive roll) but the adhesive is very strong and ph neutral. Does anybody have any other pressure sensitive adhesive recommendations?

Our primary concern is getting a good cut on the Sintra and particularly the thicker 6mm sheets. We purchased a KeenCut Excalibur 5000 and have had some success. Issues involve the blade bending producing uneven cuts or the blade jumping producing jagged cuts. Even when we do get an even smooth cut on the edge of the Sintra, the print bends out at the edge a little bit. How do you mount the print to the Sintra and cut the print / Sintra so that the edges of both are perfectly smooth and even? We have tried mounting and then cutting the print and Sintra together and also cutting the Sintra to size (minus 1/8") mounting the print and then trimming the print excess from the back with similar results.

Any advice from photographers/mounters/framers who have had successful results cutting and mounting to Sintra would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Best,
Patrick Allen
http://www.kenallenstudios.com/

[Drew Wiley]

Why do you need Sintra? It certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

[Roger Thoms]

Why do you need Sintra? It certainly wouldn't be my first choice.

What would be a better choice?

Roger

[PAllen]

Sintra is a very popular substrate for mounting. It is rigid and can be used for displaying a piece without a frame or in a frame. We also mount to Dibond but Sintra is less expensive and we have a lot of requests for it. We just need the edge of the print to be perfectly in line with the Sintra.

Best,
Patrick Allen
http://www.kenallenstudios.com

[bob carnie]

We have a Fletcher di bond cutter , plexi and it works well for sintra.

Keep humidiy up in room , and sometimes we go to the seal face mount product
for sensitive problem free mounts.
We use di bond or omega bond a lot , but still have applications for sintra.

If you are getting into face to plexi with dibond backing (which seems to be the flavour of the month) getting exact cuts are really a PIA even with the Fletcher.
We are lucky that a friendly lab in the city has a moster xy cutter that will cut exact sizes so we lay the plexi over the diabond, they cut together for a perfect fit.

GBC is a quality outfit, just may need to move to the face mount adhesive for more critical work.. it is really expensive .

[Keith S. Walklet]

Sintra is interesting stuff.

Rather than mounting my prints to it, I use it as my work surface. I've got two 4x8 work tables, each with a sheet of Sintra on top of it.

I use it because the hand-held OLFA rotary cutter I trim the edges of matboard, and trim out oversize inkjet prints, does not cut the SINTRA. It marks it with a line, but behaves more like a self-healing mat. To actually cut through the Sintra with the rotary blade, I really have to bear down.

Oddly, in comparison, SINTRA cuts easily with a razor or Xacto knife. To get a straight cut though, I need to use a straight edge guide (a 40" Logan model).

[Jim C.]

Are you cutting the Sintra in one pass or multiple passes ?

Googling the KeenCut machine, it looks to use box/carpet cutting blades
if you're doing the cut in one pass the blade may be binding and
bending giving you off cuts.
Or it could be the Keen Cut has a alignment/ straightness
problem.
Sintra is foamed PVC and 6mm is almost .25 inch thick, that's pretty
thick to try to blade cut in one pass. One thought is to try to keep the blade lubed
if you're doing a one pass cut, liquid hand soap, dishwashing liquid,
might work and can be rinsed off.
My experience with Sintra is prop making, and I've used table saws, band saws,
and hand held circular saws to cut it, I rarely cut it by hand.

[PAllen]

Thanks for the info everybody.

Jim: It takes about 5 passes to cut through the Sintra. I think the blade would probably snap in half if we tried it in one pass! Keeping the blade lubed is a good idea though. We are still considering a saw, but the problem is not so much that we cant get a good cut on the sintra as it is getting a good cut on the photograph once mounted to the Sintra. Im wondering if you mount the print and then cut the mounted piece with a saw if you will get a nice clean edge on both the photgraph and Sintra.

Bob: We are not going to venture into the Plexi-face mounting jobs so we outsource this work. Do you use the Seal Face Mounting Adhesive to mount a print to Sintra, Dibond, etc.? Or is it only used for face mounting?

Best,
Patrick

[bob carnie]

Both
we find this adhesive to be really smooth mount, specifically for flex gloss prints on diabond where there is no margin for error.
Face mounting is really a PIA but when done well a really wonderful process./


Thanks for the info everybody.

Jim: It takes about 5 passes to cut through the Sintra. I think the blade would probably snap in half if we tried it in one pass! Keeping the blade lubed is a good idea though. We are still considering a saw, but the problem is not so much that we cant get a good cut on the sintra as it is getting a good cut on the photograph once mounted to the Sintra. Im wondering if you mount the print and then cut the mounted piece with a saw if you will get a nice clean edge on both the photgraph and Sintra.

Bob: We are not going to venture into the Plexi-face mounting jobs so we outsource this work. Do you use the Seal Face Mounting Adhesive to mount a print to Sintra, Dibond, etc.? Or is it only used for face mounting?

Best,
Patrick

[Drew Wiley]

There are several potential problems with blade-cutting, involving either the strength
of the blade connection and bars in the cutter, or more often, the quality of the blades
themselves. If it's a conventional utility-knife blade, get something made in Japan with
quality steel rather than the usual made in China Stanley etc stuff. This really helps. Sawing is a poor option unless you own the right kind of equipment. I can easily cut even thin honeycomb plastic very clean on a true electronic rail saw. Works best if the material is sandwiched between sheets of comparable material. Keeping abrasive dust off the print will be a bigger problem. I'd avoid sawing unless you're willing to invest in appropriate equipment, including the HEPA vac extraction system. Sintra cuts poorly with a hook blade unless you constantly sharpen it; hook blades work better for scoring acrylic. If I had to use Sintra I'd precisely size it with a precision saw first, then mount the print, then trim the oversize edges of the print with a guided razor system. But again, you need the right gear or need to switch to a substrate which will cut cleaner with your existing system.

[Jim C.]

PAllen, I'm not so sure of cutting the Sintra with a mounted print, the saw blades will
chew up the prints edge.

[Jim Michael]

I'm assuming reference to a saw implies a table saw. Anyone try using a band saw?

[Drew Wiley]

No, not a table saw. A sliding table saw is OK, and you can get them used for 15 grand
up, but they take up a lot of space. If I was volume-cutting Sintra and didn't have a
CNC setup, I'd simply get a custom made rotary-knife made for my Festool rail system.
Cutting Sintra itself is a piece of cake with a conventional carbide plywood or melamine
blade. The point of a rotary knife would be to shear through the print itself just like
a knife blade, as well as the Sintra backing without generating dust. It's just so much
easier to cut a smooth styrene board like Ultramount (or is it Ultraboard? I always get
the two mixed up - it's the one with plastics faces, and just as smooth as Dibond). Or Gator works great if you first sand it with non-stearated discs. Sintra is vinyl and gets
floppy with heat, cuts relatively poorly except with saws, generates a lot of fine dust,
and isn't quite a flat as certain other options. It is easy to acquire, however.

[Drew Wiley]

Didn't finish my thought. A good wall-mounted panel saw is nice, but these start around thirty grand at the moment, at least for something versatile. The whole problem
with conventional shop tools is that they are poor with dust extraction. No big deal if
you hose off the Sintra before taking it to the framing room. But if the functions are
in proximity you'd want something with far better dust control, like Festool, which you
can also get into (saw & vac) for a little over a grand.

[Jim C.]

I'm assuming reference to a saw implies a table saw. Anyone try using a band saw?

Table saw, a band saw would leave a ragged edge even worse than a table saw
even with fine tooth blade.


No, not a table saw. A sliding table saw is OK, and you can get them used for 15 grand
up, but they take up a lot of space.

You can retro fit a table saw with a homemade MDF or ULMDF sliding table for about
$30 bucks depending on the size of your saw, I built one years ago to cut plexi tubes.

but i digress...

[Drew Wiley]

For picture framing applications it helps to have precise equipment. For example, a 4ft
wide pice of 1/8" acrylic glazing can actually expand/contract about 1/8" in width. If
you are maybe 1/16" undersize or out of square using a narrow frame rabbet or metal
sectional frame, the glazing might pop out. If it is oversize 1/16" from thermal midpoint,
it might buckle or even push some frame sections apart. Now I know a few folks who
think they can make anything using a double-bit axe, chainsaw, and spiked ball, but
for those who differentiate between fabrication and demolition, it helps to have good
tools. I deal with a frame shop who has a numerical controlled matcutter and Streibing panel saw which add up to sixty grand just for those two items - now most of us don't
need high-production gear like that. But any table saw with a thirty dollar or even
three hundred dollar sliding attachment is what we classify in this part of the world
as a boat anchor!

[Drew Wiley]

More specifically, Jim, the original question was about backing materials. Sintra is easy
to cut with even a cheap Skilsaw. But if someone graduates into Dibond or honeycomb
panel, the cheap options perform poorly.

[bob carnie]

+1 larger sizes even become much more problematic

More specifically, Jim, the original question was about backing materials. Sintra is easy
to cut with even a cheap Skilsaw. But if someone graduates into Dibond or honeycomb
panel, the cheap options perform poorly.

[Drew Wiley]

Yeah Bob, you recognize the turf. I can cut and snap plexi with a 50-cent hook on a
utility knife, but how long till a hundred dollar sheet gets messed up, or how long will it take to hang a show that way. Then for those of us who often work in high-gloss prints and want to offer the option of optically coated acrylic - at $600 wholesale for a piece of plastic big enough for just one 30X40 framed print - how many sheets is one
willing to practice on and muck up before a dedicated thousand dollar saw starts looking like a bargain - and all it takes is a single scratch!