Mounting on gatorboard or Sintra

I managed to find access to a good dry mount press so I am planning to mount a bunch of pictures to hang at high density on a wall. My plan is to dry mount the photos without a mat or frame on thick boards. Since there will not be frames (allowing the high density), I don't think foam core will be rigid enough. So my question is whether any of you have experience with mounting on gatorboard or Sintra without frames. I am particularly concerned with the board bending or warping when hung on a wall over time. Also can one dry mount onto either board? Thanks in advance.

Hello again. It has been ages since heating up a dry mount press & using it. Any type of paper or rag board will warp over time. For 10 years or so I used Masonite sheets to replace my "usual" 100% rag boards for display or portraits. Prints will dry mount to it with ease. It is an "ugly" colored material but borderless prints work OK. Bill

I also used masonite for large borderless prints, but not with a press. I used permanent rubber cement (also used for leatherwork) spray mount or liquid padding compound held up and worked well. You can use a paint stick on the edges - preferably before mounting the print.

Masonite should be dimensionally stable but it contains formaldehyde and other chemicals that could harm your prints over time if used for a substrate.

substrate

You are certainly correct, and for Fine Photography, archival methods should certainly be applied. What I did was a series of large commercial prints which I carefully processed, then mounted. The last I saw the prints, they had been on display in a well lit / sunny commercial space for half a dozen years and were still going strong. All depends on needs and usage.

Masonite reminds me of when I was in high school, I had some pictures and masonite,

and some dry mount sheets. No dry mount press, so I used a household iron.

 

Then using a convenient saw, cut them up as a puzzle for some little kids.

We had a little saw that was real convenient for doing this, with a table and

very narrow blade. I don't see anything like it on web searches now, but it

would be used for scale model building, not for big sized projects.

 

Otherwise, I believe the usual one is to preheat the mounting board in

the press to dry it all the way though. But there will probably always

be a tiny bit of warping, even in the best case.

A very old and not inexpensive trick I was taught for important prints in order to avoid warping was to mount a sheet of blank processed paper on the back of the mount board to balance the image on the front. Any activity in the emulsion on the print counteracted by the emulsion on the back.

The Kodak film not so long before Verichrome is called NC, or Non-Curling.

 

As well as I know it, they put a coating on the back with similar shrink characteristics to the emulsion side.

(Not that they don't still curl, but presumably much less.)

 

I suspect that most people have enough mistakes for at least a small number of mounted prints, to have something to put on the back.