No more under mats?

A salesperson has told me that now that acid-free foam core is available,
many framers are dispensing with the undermat. They just mount prints
directly between the foam core and over mat. Any opinions about this
practice?
-Lew

In article ,
Lew wrote:

A salesperson has told me that now that acid-free foam core is available,
many framers are dispensing with the undermat. They just mount prints
directly between the foam core and over mat. Any opinions about this
practice?

Framers do all sorts of things. But many framers have only a vague
idea of what's really necessary to meet archival requirements, and
even less interest in doing any extra work to carry it out.

People have been mounting directly to foam core for years, and "acid
free" foam core has existed for at least a decade and a half. But it
is considerably harder to know that a sheet of foam with a paper surface
stuck to both sides is really archival than it is to know that a piece of
pure rag board (buffered for monochrome work, unbuffered for color) from
a reputable paper company is. How do you really know if you've even got
"acid free" foam core or not?

And in my experience framers are averse to putting foam core into a
mounting press and so often lie and claim they dry mounted when in
fact they used spray adhesive.

I sometimes mount color work to "acid free" foam core. I seem to recall
that there's a foam board in the Artcare product line, and I'd have few
qualms about using that. However, I mount black and white work to 100%
rag board or, if I must use a cheaper material, to Light Impressions'
archival corrugated board. Acid-free foam core is an acceptable material
to back a sheet of relatively thin board with the photograph mounted to
it, but I don't mount black and white photographs to it directly.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon

"We cannot usually in social life pursue a single value or a single moral
aim, untroubled by the need to compromise with others." - H.L.A. Hart

Lew wrote:

A salesperson has told me that now that acid-free
foam core is available, many framers are dispensing
with the undermat.


By undermat do mean backer-board? So a foam
backer-board? If so what has foam over some other
material upon which to mount directly? Dan

In the past, I'd cut a 4 ply over mat and hinge that to a 2 or 4 ply
undermat of the same size. Then I'd mount my print on the undermat. I'd use
the foam core as a backing only when placing the mat/print sandwich into a
frame. The foam core provided a stiff backing so the mats would stay flat,
and this resulted in using 3 pieces of mounting material to get a print into
a frame. My supplier tells me that since foam core now meets archival
standards, the under mat isn't necessary; the print can be mounted directly
on the foam core so that only 2 pieces of mounting material are necessary.
It's not a case of foam core being better than anything else, just that that
it's now ok to mount on it directly. Naturally this only applies when the
undermat would not be visible through the window cut into the overmat.

wrote in message
oups.com...
Lew wrote:

A salesperson has told me that now that acid-free
foam core is available, many framers are dispensing
with the undermat.


By undermat do mean backer-board? So a foam
backer-board? If so what has foam over some other
material upon which to mount directly? Dan

In article ,
Lew wrote:

[Please don't top-post. It makes your messages hard to read and is
impolite to other participants.]

My supplier tells me that since foam core now meets archival
standards, the under mat isn't necessary; the print can be mounted directly
on the foam core so that only 2 pieces of mounting material are necessary.

As I wrote earlier, I think there are good reasons to not trust your
supplier about this. Even the Light Impressions archival corrugated is
a safer choice than "archival" foam core. To begin with, "acid free" and
"archival" are not the same, and I don't think you'll find many museum
folks who agree that even "acid free" foam core is an archival material;
second, it's basically impossible to find out if you've actually got
acid-free foam core or not, which restricts one's choice of suppliers
quite substantially; you can pick up archival rag board just about anywhere
and know what you've got, but I wouldn't buy "acid free" foam core anywhere
I didn't trust _very_ much; I've just seen too many careless mistakes and
active deception in this area.

--
Thor Lancelot Simon

"We cannot usually in social life pursue a single value or a single moral
aim, untroubled by the need to compromise with others." - H.L.A. Hart