I was given a "Seal Commercial 210m" dry mounting press recently. I don't know much about dry mounting; I'm just starting to do some research on the web. If anyone has experience to share it would be appreciated, especially regarding mounting board and tissue selection.
SEAL USED TO MAKE TEST STRIPS FOR TEMPERATURE. iF THEY STILL EXIST, THEY ARE A GOOD INVESTMENT AS THE THERMOSTATS IN THESE MACHINES GET DUBIOUS OVER THE YEARS.
WHEN STARTING, BE SURE YOU ALLOW THE MACHINE TO COMPLETELY WARM UP. PREVENTS UNEVEN MOUNTING DUE TO TO INCOMPLETE WARMING.
THEY ARE PROFESSIONAL MACHINES DESIGNED FOR HEAVY USE. ENJOY!
I have used the commercial Seal Mount Systems for years. The low temperature mounting tissue is what you need for todays papers. Try 165 degrees on a test paper and mounting board. You can increase your time a bit if the temperature is too low. If after approx 1 minute you still are not getting good adhesion, increase your time at 15 sec intervals until the tissue binds to the board. By the way, the Color Tissue Mount is removable. A second important tip, place your mounting board in the press and close the press for 1 1/2 minutes before placing the print and tissue on it. You do this to drive out the residual moisture which will cause the board to curl otherwise. Also, try and get a sheet of silicone treated "mounting release" paper to place between the print surface and the platten of the mounting press. This will prevent the mounting tissue from sticking to the platten and the texture of the paper surface unaltered. If you can get a tacking iron to tack down the tissue before mounting this will also help. You can use foam board or regular standard single or double weight mount board.
Good Luck-Chuck
Chuck gave some great advice. The only other thing I'd mention is to keep things super clean. It's horribly easy to get a bit of grit between the press and the print and make a small dent that can't be recovered.
BTW I use dry mount tissue that comes on a roll and recently had to throw out 2 prints because I hadn't noticed that a section of the roll had a flaw (a diagonal wrinkle) that left a pronounced line across the print.
One other thing I left out, if you can't put your hands on seal release paper, you can use a sheet of plain brown wrapping paper. Occasionaly I have used this technique and it works pretty well, even for glossy surfaces. As a side note, I had MPIX mount some stuff for me and they didn't use pre dried board, the results were curled prints (Grrrrrrrrrr)
