How to mount slides

Hi there,

Does anyone have any information or websites/books to look at regarding

mounting slides at home? Equipment needed, how to instructions etc?

 

Thanks

 

MJ

If you are referring to 35mm I suppose there is some automatic mounting system.

For MF slides you can easily mount it manually in GEPE mount. On the GEPE web site they sell a press to mount it but is perfectly useless in my opinion.

Look at www.gepe.com

You don`t need any instructions. Sort of like boiling water. Open mount-insert slide-close.

 

The best image projection by a wide margin is glass mounted slides and a flat field lens. Plastic and cardboard do not hold the slide flat enough and curved field lenses are not a perfect solution.

 

I found the biggest problem is cutting the slides from the film strip perfectly. Back lighting and 1" blade scisors work decently. A slide cutter like my Kaiser is a fantastic help and gets perfect results. It is inexpensive.

Pic Mount. They're in the west? Nevada? last I bought from them. They make all kinds of slide mounts. I use simple cardboard heat seal. Heat seal is simple. Take a hot iron and seal the edges. They usually sell in boxes of 1000 [ about 30 rolls of film for me]. They carry all manner of round edge and plastic mounts with the heavy duty machinery to mount automatically. You can even have a custom logo imprinted. But if it's a small operation, I would stick with an iron, no steam of course.

 

Simply have a reliable scissor. Lay out the mounts. Place the cut frames in the cutout and iron on. Edges only not over the film surface. I use a pencil to mark off each roll by number and frame for reference later. Use any simple database to keep a list of what's what. I can usually reference a roll, place, and event in only a few minutes of search.

 

In the event you only want to work with a few rolls then there are photo supply shops that will sell a smaller number.

Look no further than <a href="http://www.slidescribe.com/" target="_blank">SlideScribe</a>. They have mounting supplies and much more.

polaroid made a 35mm slide mounter that is readily available on ebay rather inexpensively

"You don`t need any instructions. Sort of like boiling water. Open mount-insert slide-close."

 

That's about it, LOL. I've busted open, remounted, reopened and remounted over 1800, for a scanning project, and it's very simple. There are devices to expedite pressing the frame closed, but for simple press-to-close mounts your fingers are all you need. And after the first few tries, you'll have it down pat.

Cotton gloves.

Canned air.

GOOD expensive parallel-blade scissors such as Fiskars (orange handle, Finnish, stainless steel, sharp)

 

The advantage of glass mounts plays against the challenge of mounting without dust...and you do want anti-newton glass, which frequently needs washing again, brand new and out of the box.

 

Google for Gepe and Wess mounts, bet on glassless versions.

The only (modest) special skill you will have to develop is to learn how to manipulate the slide without leaving fingerprints on it. It's either learning that, or wearing thin cotton gloves.

 

A number of companies offer very simple and cheap slide cutter/mounting devices. You insert the film in guides against a back-ligthed screen (either battery or main), and when in position run a cutter element along the thin separating space between two photograms. Same makers have slide mounts that can be firmly inserted in an open position against the exit end of the film guides, so that after cutting you simply advance the slide further until it is inside the mount, and then extract the mount - which automatically close the flip cover and seals it. It actually take more to describe the process than to do it.

 

I would also recommend that you select mounts that have a clearly identifiable "front" and "back", "up" and "down", or acquire the habit of marking the mounts immediately after ready (say, the upper rear right corner). This will ensure that the slides are alway in the correct position for either projection or archivial purposes, without having to look at the emulsion to decide which is right and which left or ruining a presentation with the occasional upside down image.

>cotton gloves

 

Where would be a good source for these in a quantity of one or two pairs? I've had no luck finding thin inspection gloves locally, and online vendors of course want to sell a few dozen (or triple the price for shipping).

A neat alternative to gloves is surgical rubber finger cots. I used them for editing Super 8 original with no fingerprints. They slip over the ends of your thumbs and first two fingers, so you don't have that loose awkward feel from gloves.