Hidden Supports: The Art and Practice of Mountmaking

Hello and welcome to this afternoon's connecting to collections care webinar. My name is Caitlyn Lee. I'm the outreach manager for the foundation for advancement and conservation which runs COC care. I'm joining you here from Arlington, Virginia today. Our programming is made possible through support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services, IMLS, and through individual contributions. We offer free monthly programs on collection care and you can always find us at connectingtocolctions.org. I encourage you to explore our site to see our archive of past webinars and learn about upcoming programming. We also host a fantastic community where you can have care questions answered by volunteer experts and connect with your colleagues. We use Wordley to help provide captioning and translation for our programs. You can use the QR code on the screen or the link that I'll be sharing in the chat momentarily to join. Um, just a note, if you decide to use the Wordley app through the Zoom application, you'll want to pop out the Wordly app first, then open the chat box to make sure you don't lose it on your screen. If you're viewing the program in a browser window instead of the app, you'll need to access it via it via the QR code or the link that I'll be sharing in the chat. The Wordly live stream link that appears in the upper right hand corner of your screen also acts as a link to the live feed. You can also connect with us on social media. You can find us on Facebook and on LinkedIn. As a little bit of housekeeping, please do use the chat to say hello and share where you're joining from, but share any questions for our presenters through the Q&A function. Um, as I mentioned earlier, we'd like to um acknowledge the support of IMLS and recognize all of the wonderful community support that we received from CDC care users. Um, if you've benefited from CDC Care in the past, we hope that you'll consider making a gift to support us. And now, I'd like to introduce today's speakers. We'll be hearing from Jen Simons and Erica Johnson, founding members of Bridg Mount. Jen and Erica have been both making mounts for nearly 20 years. Jen started out in large-scale steel construction as a structural welder, and Erica was precision machinist and clock worker, clock maker, sorry. After 11 years of making mounts together, they are still learning from each other and from every exhibit. There's no crying in mount making will never be true, but they hope that they can make this game a little easier because we're all on the same team. And with that, I would love to pass it over to Erica and Jen. >> Hello. Hello, everybody. Um, I'm Jen Simons and this is Erica Johnson from Bridg Mount. Um, we're excited to present this uh kind of very basic understanding of what we do and we hope that you guys find uh some of these tips uh to be useful to you and we look forward to questions uh at the end. Time to start. >> Yeah, try sharing our screen. >> Okay, bear with us. We are not good at this. Um there we go. >> Okay. All right. So, um our our uh presentation is called hidden supports or so you need to display some objects. And we'd like to start by thanking historic St. Mary's City for allowing us to share images of objects from their collection. So, we're starting with a reality check about mount making. Um, this is still the wild west. There are no certifications and no standards. Bad mounts cause bad damage and fitting a mount is high stress but also crazy fun. And we see our mount community moving towards sharing knowledge and recognizing the need for common ground. But currently, we're doing we're all doing our own thing and that's not really good for communication or object safety. So, um if this is your first big exhibit or um you're looking forward to your second big exhibit, uh these are basically the um the basic concepts you always want to be hitting. And it kind of addresses the problems that we see again and again. Uh first is that you need an objects team and that's a direct communication from concept to install with your uh museum object specialist, your mount maker and your case fabricator. Uh the object list is often something that isn't quite um what we need. What we need is a spreadsheet. The image should be in the cell and not floating. We need the object name, the case number, exhibit number, and the display needs. Um case designs. Um you should be aware that there's a wide range in what case designs um are available. Uh you could be getting doodled mood boards or technical layouts. So, you want to be asking who is doing the case design, who's finalizing that design, how will it be detailed, and the mounts. You want to qualify and quantify what you want or you're going to get quotes for apples and oranges because it's the same as case designs. You could be getting pretty much anything. The schedule, um, think about booking your mount maker a year in advance. Um, you might be able to get somebody earlier, but, you know, there aren't that many mount makers out there. and consult talk to the people who've cried in cases because really there is crying in mount making. [laughter] All right. So what we're going to um start with is alphabet blanks. And um what we found is we have always made custom mounts for pretty much everything. But in the last few years we've started to realize how much can be done with generic blanks. And um most blanks that you can buy are in the shape of an X or T. But we have found the letter H to be very useful and something that pretty much anybody at a museum can do inhouse. Um, so what do you need to do it yourself? Um, you could have the blanks made by art students, crafty retirees or volunteers. Um, you could use the patterns that we had in that last slide. Um, basic fitting tools you'd need would be pliers, nippers, and files. And if you want to get fancy, um a Bosch right angle die grinder is amazing. Uh we finish mounts um with Kryolon gray primer, acrylic paints, and three coats of Kryolon clear gloss coating. And if you need more padding, we have do-it-yourself poly suede instructions that will be at the end. Okay, so the difference between an H and a traditional X is that you have less central arms, which means you have less fitting. The thick crossbar is going to be easier to install without distortion. The thin sidearms are more discreet and easier to bend. And using rolled, not round brass means it fits closer and it's easier to bend. So the finished mount is easier to orient on the object. So here are some basic um mounts using an H shape. Um we're showing unfinished mounts um to show how they fit. They're going to be sanded, painted, and clear coated later. They have no temporary padding. Um, this works for small objects because it's easier to feel the fit, but it requires very careful handling. Note that the center mount has a chunky mount tab on the right. Uh, hopefully uh that's going to be fixed before we finish it because it's kind of ugly. All right. Design by doing and motion planning. Um, this mount shows how the physical process of fitting helped plan for the object's path of travel. The gap in the mount at the bottom arrow isn't visible from the front, but allows the object to be deinstalled using the gap in the object at the top arrow. And here are a few different types of mounts using the H. Um, you can see on the right shard how the two bottom tabs work together to lock the shard into position without a bottom right tab. And plates. These plate mounts show motion planning around the lip. This also shows the importance of rod placement. Rods are typically slightly above the center of gravity, especially for heavier objects. And always give big hugs. Our goal is to distribute the load. You don't want to focus support in a small area or the object will walk around in the mount. The comb mount shows how mounts are sometimes compromises. The rod is accidentally off center, but because the object is so fragile, it's better to let that go than try to fix it and expose the object to more handling risk. Stepping it up to stop the spin. Having a tab higher up will lock objects in and keep them secure. Note that the rod for the key mount is not perpendicular to the back wall. It'll need to be adjusted before finishing. And locking top tabs. So, this is what we call the swoop install, and that's when a top tab helps keep objects from being knocked loose. And this is especially helpful with smaller objects. The object has to be deliberately swooped, scooped, or rotated into the mount. And then, if it's jostled up or down, the object won't be knocked out. So, this kind of shows how we're um by using a blank, you kind of do improv with objects. um and we're doing design by doing. The original intent was for an arm as shown um in red, but even with longer tabs, the object spun out and the design was switched to a locking top tab shown in yellow to keep the object secure. An alternate solution would be a bottom tab at the front of the curb right under the rod. And this shows how even after 20 years of fitting, we make mistakes and um mounts don't always end up how we plan them. the sideways H. So, we did a couple mounts with the H turned sideways. Um, it's not as useful because the rod was often too low. Um, you can show how we use that to advantage on the pipe mount because we were able to give a bigger hug and support more area because we had that extra distance to cover. So, we moved the rod. We made an H with the rod uh centered on one of the smaller arms, and that gave us more options. Um, these are not simple T's. You can see how um uh it looks like a tea, but um these uh the mount goes inside of the object and then the secondary arm is actually um internally stabilizing it from shake. Um you can also see how the rod was bent up on uh I think the the one object that has like the little pointy thing at the top. Um so that's fixing a gra a center of gravity mistake. So we're realigning it so that the object doesn't spin. And that top image shows some lumps of solder. Um, sometimes you have to just let things go. And that's a case where, you know, it's not perfect, but it will do. And here are some examples of more complex ways we found to use the Hmount. Uh, these are photos of a bull mount. And it and it also shows uh the changes with sanding and paint. So, the front view on the right has unsanded arms, and the bottom left image shows how sanding took down that thickness. And here's a finished sideways H with an install template. Uh, instant templates are amazing for some jobs. For some jobs, you don't need them. But, um, what makes them super useful is a grid that marks, uh, that the grid aligns with the horizon. The upper right corner, we have the case and object information. a bold outline for the object and then simple pencil marks for the mount and an Xrox marks the rod location for drilling. And it's colorcoded in highlighter to show the drill size. And this is another way to mount a bowl using the same H shape. Check, check, check. Um these are process photos showing an H blank with a larger crossbar. And um we're check these kind of shows the check views when when you're um fabricating the fitting process is a lot of looking and feeling and testing. And um just to make sure this is said, you never bend um next to an object and you never flex a mount to get an object in or out. You should not need to pull back a mount tab like a spring. So, if you find yourself doing that, um either you're not being patient enough or there's a problem with the mount. And so, um those were basic mounts using standard blanks. And that's just kind of a dip into the world of mount making. We can end up anywhere, including mounting plastic cups inside an old tire. There are book mounts, textiles, documents, rigging, install, building mannequins, and of course the wider scope of basically managing how everything gets into a case safely. And so we are going to close up our video um about making mount padding. So here we go. I think this should just play automatically. Does it play? Let's see. Hey museums, lots of us use ultraas suede with double stick for padding mounts and we have some new information. The materials wiki has testing results by the field museum from 2022, but the toé ultraas suede ST fabric that has been tested isn't available anymore. A year ago, we had new samples tested and three fabrics look promising. No black fabric has passed yet and these listed colors were not successful. But what did pass was thinner than ST and stretchy. This is Ultra Suede LX in brownstone. Ultraas Suede XL is slightly thinner and it lacks the suppleness of LX. Um testing went well for two colors in XL, Cocoa Frost and ash Beige. The fabric can be ordered from Toreé directly and it ships from Japan. It needs to be washed and then you can press 3M415 tape with a roller set to 10,000 of an inch. We hope to link to test results, but for now we hope other museums can also run testing. So, let us know what you think. Happy mount making everyone. Okay. Stop sharing. Can you do it? Let's see. Stop share. There we go. Okay. Thanks Erica and Jen for taking us through mount making quickly. I'm gonna go ahead and open it up to the Q&A function in the chat. Uh if you have any questions about mount making um especially you know things that get into specifics of types of objects in your collections or if you have any questions um you know in terms of sourcing in terms of training u feel free to start sharing those with us now in the chat. Uh Erica and Jen, do I was going to say I know you'll be sharing the slides so that way people will have a chance to kind of look at the specific positioning of things, get a little bit more indepth with how those things were formed. Um do you have any overall advice? I know one of the kind of great points you were making earlier was talking about patience. Um, do you have any advice on um being patient essentially and how working with objects um in terms of fitting them into mounts? It's it's sort of interesting because, you know, the the process that we just showed is a is a really simple process that we've found works especially with smaller objects where as opposed to sitting and and overly thinking about them, you just kind of work through that process of taking that mount and transforming it into into into a mount. Um the patience comes in where you just have to sort of anticipate your moves and you just sort of have to thoughtfully bend things. Um, you know, it's a lot of kind of taking that shape, resting it near the OB object, making a micro kind of bend, looking at it again, taking it back. Really, honestly, if you get to a point with a mount where everything is sort of fitting and then you have one part that doesn't fit, you really have to go back to that one part and kind of work it out again. Um, also, if you find yourself getting incredibly frustrated with an object, always sit it down, walk away from it. Um, sometimes the solution is there. You just have to sort of calm your mind long enough to see it. And going on and problem solving something else is a really great way to come back to this something that you find very challenging. Um, but patience is definitely um I kind of feel like the Incredible Hulk sometimes when I'm around objects cuz I'm getting aggressive or I'm feeling stressed. And um and you really have to just sort of calm down and be as gentle as possible because what we do is incredibly dangerous. Um honestly, one of the most dangerous things that can happen to an object is mountmaking. Um you're hyperextending it in a case, you're putting it high up on display. And so you want to make sure whether you're the one that's fitting the mounts or or you're hiring someone else that you really know that they're qualified and that they have the skills and kind of the the the patience to sort of do the work carefully because damaging an object is is the last thing that should ever happen. >> And also you start in the center, you move out >> radiate out >> and one bend at a time and sometimes half a bend. >> Yeah. Yeah. And also always keeping gravity in gravity is something that you absolutely have to think about. Um because the location of the rod is going to is going to it. Sorry, my brain is dying. Um you want to make sure that that object is perfectly balanced in the mount so it doesn't have an opportunity to spin so that it can't fall out. So really tracking the location of the stem and sort of radiating out from there. >> I think this goes great into a question we received in the uh Q&A. Somebody asked for a little bit more detail on the process of fitting mounts around the object and doing that especially with highly fragile materials. So kind of I think what you were just talking about a little bit of going like a quarter of a bend at a time and >> even a quarter bend I think sometimes is a little bit extreme. Um one of the uh we always use mechanical pencils when we're working with fitting. Um we try to create a safety space for the mount and the object with the tool sort of outside of that zone. Um, you want to make sure that the object is really supported as you're working with it. And, you know, micro bends, make a little tick mark, make a tiny adjustment, check it, bring it back, make a tiny adjustment. You're really just slowly working your way. Um, an ill-fitting mount can be just as dangerous as as a very tightly fit mount. So there's a fine line between squeezing an object to death and hugging it gently the way that you know we sort of were talking about in the presentation. >> Um for us sometimes amount can take 5 minutes to fit and sometimes amount can take an hour plus. It really just depends on the complexity of it. But you want to make sure that everything that you're doing is really following the pattern and the line of the object so that the object easily comes out. you're not having to sort of bend the mount around it. Um, yeah. >> Thank you. And then we had a request to describe a little bit more the rinsing the washing, rinsing, and drying process for the ultraas suede. >> Uh, for the ultraas suede um is no I'm trying to think like no perfume um >> perfumes or dyes. >> Yeah, no perfumes or dyes and you just wash it in the washing machine. Um, I did and then two rinse cycles and then hang to dry. Um, we had a slight smell to the Ultraas suede when after we washed it, but that did dissipate over time. Um, I'm hoping that that is not a problem, but we did um when it was tested, the uh every single Ultra Suede that was tested with washing did better than before it was washed. Great. And we had a kind of followup different question about suede. Um, there was a request for more information about benchmark suede, which is still available. If you would recommend that or if you have any concerns about using it or >> I I don't believe it's um available anymore. Um, it's >> passing the Audi test right now. Well, yeah, people have had problems with it passing the Audi test. And so, um, you know, sometimes we find clients say, you know, it has a history good use, so we use some of the older stuff. And, um, other times people are like, you know, just use the, uh, the tan or the the certain color. There's certain colors that we're passing. And so, um, you know, it's >> it's unfortunately a challenge. So, if anybody has a museum that does do Audi testing, um, that would be great because we've had it tested by two institutions, but neither of them can share their results. >> Yeah. So, I think that's a great piece of advice kind of, you know, think about where you can find more information about any individual product. Look at the age of the product and consider that when making your decisions. Also, if you have um most mount makers and museums have a stash of Ultraas suede uh hanging around. Um if you start to find that the adhesive on the back of of the sueded polyethylene is discoloring, you definitely want to stop using it because it is no longer uh maybe for temporary padding um but definitely not for any long-term display use. um it does have a a shelf life and if it starts to turn um it's it's not safe for the objects >> and we know people have been using the ultraas suede with the double stick for at least 15 years or so um you know the earlier versions of ultraas suede but because it does change so much over time uh you know the new testing helps and this newer ultraas suede is so much thinner it's really gorgeous >> it's really great um and for us we wanted to the more information that we can get regarding the testing that we're doing. We really want to share that and make it public so that it's easily accessible to other people. Um that way you can buy your own material, you can make it in your own shop. Um it definitely uh it's definitely a a better option for people. Um and we know that our colleagues at the Field Museum, they have been making their own suede for decades at this point. So um they're a great resource for information as well. A follow-up question about that process. I know you talked a little bit about tape discoloration or any other concerns with that. Can you specify again the 3M tape that you use with the Ultraas suede? >> 415, right? >> 415. >> Yeah. >> It's basically the uh the holy grail of tape that museum people use. And um we also use it for test suede. One of the things that we do um when we're fitting larger mounts that we know will need to have suede on them, we will take the 415 tape and then take benchmark suede or additional material and we'll make test suede that basically just goes on the mount as we're fitting it so that we know that we're not in jeopardy of of araiding or transferring brass to to an object. Also, you can take it off really easily and reuse it multiple times. So rather than taking an expensive material and destroying it, uh you can get several uses out of it um just for the fitting process. >> We also have a very helpful note here from one of the textile conservators in the chat. Uh she also noted that you can dry ultra suede in the dryer and it behaves beautifully. So >> uh cool tips. Uh we love to see our community sharing ideas with each other. Um there's also um another question while we're kind of in the vein of looking at ultraas suede asking about the press that you use to adhere the tape to the ultra suede. Can you share a little bit more about what kind of press that was? >> It's the roller. >> Yeah, it's a essentially it's a uh jewelers and other small manufacturers use them. It's uh the ones that we have are Pepe tools. Um, and essentially it takes round rod and shapes it into sort of beautifully mil rolled pieces of of flat stock. Um, the ones that we have you can sort of incrementally dial things down. And so when we were talking about this, I had sort of joked that we should put it through a roller or a pasta maker to sort of adhere it and and it works. It works beautifully. Um, if you do end up buying one, the ones that we have are kind of high-end. Um, we use them all the time. If you buy whatever one you buy, if you're going to roll the suede in it, you want to be able to put two pieces of of material top and bottom kind of to press it like a print press. And you also want to make sure that the tool is clear of oil so that it doesn't transfer. Um, anytime you're working with suading or anything like that, you want to make sure that the work surface is incredibly clean so that nothing um nothing can transfer to it, which could then transfer to the object. I've also been cutting off the edge so that you know if there's any adhesive that's squeezing out, it's not going to transfer. >> And then as a follow-up question, are there any other materials that people could use to cover mount metal or is ultraas suede standard practice? Do you have any other recommendations? >> Um, it's really depends on the object. It the object informs what kind of mount coating that you're going to use for the objects that were in the video. The St. Mary is the archaeological pieces. Um those are all going to be clear coated with Kryon. Three coats of Kryon crystal clear. Um and so um but if you have a larger object or something that has a tremendous amount of weight to it, you might want to switch up to um uh uh felt with an adhesive back felt such as the stuff that Benchmark sells. Um you can also use Aara. Um, in certain circumstances, you can use uh a thin layer of Saran Wrap as long as it's not the cling wrap that has sort of the sticky adhesive on it. Um, you can also put Teflon on a mount. Um, it really just depends what what the object sort of needs. Um, you obviously don't want to also put something on a mount where the adhesive from the felt will start to sort of ooze out and then transfer to the object. So, in particular with really giant giant objects, it's always a little bit of a challenge to decide what the right uh barrier material is. >> Wonderful. Thanks for digging into that a little more deeply. We have kind of backing up to 30,000 ft. We've had a couple of questions asking about um what types of metals, size of metals um to be used to make mounts, particularly the H mounts in general. Um these mounts are made from uh 260 leadfree brass uh historically called yellow brass. Um also we make mounts out of stainless steel uh where we'll combine stainless steel with the brass. Um that's a really nice process if you can do it where you can take a mount and make it even smaller but inherently stronger because you're bonding the strength of stainless steel with with the brass. Um, for the most part, you want to use uh an ultraformmable or an ultra machinable brass that has no lead or low lead. Um, to solder it together, you would want to use um a flux to keep the soldering joint clean. We use silver solder, whether it's uh medium, easy, or hard, or Harris 56 is sort of what we use for the larger mounts. Um, and then you want to make sure that everything is extremely clean after you go through the soldering process, which is basically oxygen and acetylene combined together um to sort of make that bond. Um, it's important once you make the mount that you clean it in pickling acid or sand blast to get all of that debris off because the um the uh material the the residue that's left behind um by the flux is really uh costic and very dangerous to to the objects and it will eventually corrode the mount itself. Um, we've seen in many institutions, uh, green kind of growing on the joints of mounts and that's really just from an improperly cleaned, uh, an improperly cleaned mount. >> Well, it's also the brass is, you know, like an Audi test. So, if there's anything bad happening in your case and you have unfinished brass, that's where it's going to grow. So, you don't, that's part of the benefit of having the paint on the surface of the mount is to keep that from happening. Um, and then there was another question about if there are kind of age blanks sold anywhere that people can purchase if they're not um, you know, necessarily equipped to do any kind of metal working or not just starting their process. >> Um, that's we we can be contacted honestly. Um, however, if you can find a a even just a basic sort of metalworking shop or a small jewelry shop, as long as you can be very specific about the material that you want to use and it's within sort of the the limits of of museum artifact mountmaking, you can really go out and find that anywhere. Um, we're always available. >> Students, art students are the way to go. >> Yeah, >> they need the money. [laughter] Um but they are really simple and there are you know a lot of resources online through the international mountmakers forum and also our website on you know basic soldering practices. Um you can do a lot with a map gas torch, some silver solder, some flux and some pickling acid. I mean it's um when I started my first company, I had a a a sander, a torch, an anvil, and a hammer. And that's basically how I how I started my first company. Um, so you can do uh things in a very basic way that are still really beneficial to the objects that you're working with. >> Great. And there's a couple of folks chiming in in the chat about places that they've sourced them as well. So, thank you to those folks. Um, as a follow-up question kind of before we move a little bit to the side, um, asking about best ways to properly clean flux from mount, I know you mentioned pickle jar, sand blasting. Can you share a little bit more about making sure a mount is clean, especially maybe if you didn't create it, making sure that you've um cleaned it properly before proceeding? >> What you're going to see is there's a kind of glassiness uh and and that is the what you want to be if if you hit it with a file and it knocks off, that's still flux on there because it turns glass. >> It's sort of like a candy coating that you don't want to have. Um it's sharp. um it will make a mount not fit properly and then also as you're working with it, it's going to transfer from the mount to your hands to the object. It's gonna get everywhere. Um going back just really quickly to purchasable options. If you find places that you want to purchase mounts from, be very careful that the H part of the mount is the part of the mount that is sort of annealed and workable. What you don't want is the stem of the mount that attaches to the wall to be just as annealed as the H shape itself because you're taking all that structure away. Um it's really important that that you can communicate to people what you need. Sometimes when you get I call them dealer mounts. Sometimes we'll see them with private clients or or just you know old mounts and collections. They're overly softened. So, no matter what you do, you're just going to have a mount that's going to endlessly flex and bend and and it's not they never harden and they're not going to hold the memory of of that. Um, we also roll all of our material so it has a natural flatness that follows the objects. So, just, you know, if you're going to hire someone to do it, maybe have them make five and look at them and just kind of see. Um, there are also places that you can do training. We offer training um uh either in our shop or we travel to institutions to work with people. Um but then also recognize what your capabilities are. This is a very basic way of making mounts. Some of the mounts we make are incredibly complex. They're meant to withstand seismic episodes. Um so know what your limitation is and don't be afraid to try. But if you have something and you know that you need someone else, um we always recommend to our clients that if they know that there's work that they can do, isolate the work that is complex that we can do and and always know that there's someone out there that can help and advocate and and um consult with you. So >> yeah, it's fantastic. I think that's a great way to start getting into things, trying building your skill set while at the same time making sure your collection is cared for. Um, I know you referenced a couple of places. Um, we've had a couple of folks asking for recommendations on where to find training. Um, both in kind of basic metal smithing. Um, I know you referenced >> community college. >> Yeah, community college is the way. If you're going to learn, you know, how to solder and do that kind of stuff, don't pay a mount maker to teach you how to do it. Just go to go to community college. It it's cheap. It's in the evening. That's the way to learn. Um it's and also just practice, you know, um spend time bending metal again, you know, >> you just have to practice and practice. Um you know, we train people and it'll still take them multiple hours to bend them out, >> right? And >> and that's that's sort of the important thing is to be sort of realistic about what your goal is. If you really just want to learn, it it takes just like anything else, it takes 10,000 hours to become really proficient at something. And we've been doing this for nearly 20 years, you know, each each of us. And there are still days where we have no idea what's happening. It's like it's like we've never done this before. Um but um but yeah, there are lots of places. Uh also a lot of cities have jewelry centers where people um kind of come together. Maker spaces are also really great. Um, and honestly go to the plumbing section at the hardware store and buy a map gas torch and um, uh, just sort of play around with it. But >> yeah, that's where I learned how to solder. Was that a jewelry class in my local community um, through my county? Um, >> yeah. >> And then there's a follow-up question while we're still sort of on metal working about what do you mean by rolling? So, the roller that we showed that was pressing that fabric, uh, it the the wheels of it go up and down. And so, we will take a piece of round rod and transform the material by putting it through the roller. And we'll pass it through multiple times until we get sort of the thickness and the bendiness that we're sort of looking for. Um, a lot of the material that we use comes one way and ends up another. It's really important no matter whether you're using a flat stock or a round rod, you want to transform the metal to make it work as best and as safely as it can with the object. And so, um, sometimes with the flat stock, we run it on the sander to take the abrasive edges off and we use buffing wheels and things like that. Um, but the roller specifically is a great way because they don't manufacture that material anymore to take 16th inch or 3/32 or 8 inch and just run it through at pressure and it flattens it out really nicely. Um, that allows us to really get those contours and bends closely on the objects. >> Great. Um, have a couple questions about um, finishing then the brass before coming to contact with collections. Um this person was asking about spring pryon asking about conservation friendly if you can share a little bit more about the testing that's been done on that so that feel comfortable >> there. So um I've done most of the trying to get the testing for uh primers and there is no primer that is testing and it's making people happy. Um unfortunately you kind of need to have primer to get paint to stick. They do make Liquitex paint that's sprayable. Um, unfortunately that also basically it's any kind of once it has that um uh this thing that makes it airiz. Yeah. It it turns it into something that you don't want to have um in your case. Uh things that help are to have uh um have it sit you know for 30 days. Um realistically that does not happen because you know we live in the real world. Um, also, um, the clear coat on top of it and just the paint on top of the primer also helps seal it in and you get better results. Uh, the testing comes back better when you don't have just bare primer. >> Um, yeah. So, so letting the primer sit after you spray it, um, then the paint, then the clear coat, that that's going to help. And then more sitting. And with the clear coat, you want to make sure that once you clear coat that mount, give it 24 hours before you put it in contact with the object at at a minimum just to make sure that there is no um stickiness or transfer or anything like that. And >> we use B72 and Kryon, but Kryon um is a lot easier application. Uh three coats of that is pretty much equivalent to a layer B72 on a mount. and and it really does. When you spray the Kryon, you want it to feel like plastic. You want it to be slippery and shiny. Um, if you find that it's too shiny on the face of the object, you can always apply some Liquitex or Golden Acrylic to the outside of the mount so that dulls the acrylic or the Kryon finish down. >> So, you like repaint the outside of the mount and the inside is shiny and and it it should be kind of >> squishy. Yeah, it's it's Yeah, it's like rubbery feeling. Mhm. >> So, speaking of plastic then of that kind of appearance, is there ever a need for acrylic tubing over the metal of a mount or is that a viable way of >> We do rarely use it. Um, sometimes it helps. Um, >> you want to use shrink tubing >> and there are certain types of shrink tubing that test better um and that are not as they're they won't yellow over time. They're not going to break down. And you want to make sure that whatever you're putting on there is really sort of clinging to the object. And you want to determine what you're using on your mount before you make the mount. Because if you go through and fit a mount without any temporary padding, without any barrier to the object and then you go back and you put surgical tubing or anything on it, it's it's taking up incremental little micro units of space and the object will not fit into that mount anymore. So, you always want to think ahead about what you're doing. Um the Getty uses shrink tubing particularly on stainless steel mounts. So little tiny stainless steel arms rather than uh going through the process of of um painting and offging because their turnaround sometimes is really rapid. You just make the mount out of stainless steel. Do shrink tube and a little bit of inainting on the outside of the shrink tube to mask the little tiny arms. Um, I try not to use shrink tube on anything that's over a sixeenth of an inch because then it becomes very uh visible and it's distracting from the objects. Um, so there's you really want to make sure that you're being thoughtful about your material choices and how it is going to impact the visual aspect of the objects and its safety. Uh there's a follow-up question then about using Matt Kryolon in terms of so that's um I can't honestly quantify or tell you why you shouldn't use Matt. I just know that um Matt does not have the same sort of um conservation barrier the the sort of archival barrieress that everything else does. Um I've not ever I've rarely seen people use matte spray. Um, but it it also has a tendency, just from my experience, to flake off. It doesn't it doesn't stick the way that it's supposed to. Um, so as a general rule, I would I would avoid using um I would avoid using the matte spray and only use the the artist Kryolon Crystal Clear. And then while we're kind of on the topic of finishing them out and trying to preserve the illusion, um could you talk a little bit about paint matching? Um especially on objects that have decorative patterns. What kind of paints do you use? And how do you ensure that the colors align correctly with the mounted object? >> That's tricky. Impressionist. So go for smudges. Don't try to match a pattern. uh uh just go for the tone is really the most and add brown. >> We sort of call it sympathetic in painting where it's it's suggestive of the object, but it's one of the things very occasionally we do have clients that want sort of hyperrealistic in painting. Um the problem with that is well one it's amazingly fun and distracting to do it but it takes a really long time. Uh but two your eyes don't travel that way. So, if you're making a mount that is going to have sort of hyperrealistic endpainting in it, you need to build the mount so that your eyes visually travel across it. So, if you have a wide bar on the back of a of a ceramic vessel and it's squared on either edge and then you're in painting it to match the ceramic vessel, that hard edge that it's never going to track. So, you want to do it in a way that is suggestive to the pattern without being so hyperrealistic that it ruins the visual of the object. Um, and for us, for the most part, I think we just do sort of sympathetic in painting, unless it's necessary not to. >> And layer paints. Your first coat is not going to match. Uh, and then second coat's getting closer. Third coat's going to be perfect. >> Erica is very good at getting her colors basically perfect before she goes to site. But I have to paint my mounts in my shop. Then I have to paint my mounts again with the objects um on site. And one of the things I like to do is either keep strips of myar or saran wrap to put on the objects so that I can visually see the color as I'm as I'm in painting it. I am not a painter so it's taken me a very long time to to get okay with in painting. So it's challenging. And we use Liquitex and golden acrylics and no mediums. We don't use gel mediums or anything like that. It's just it's just water and and the Liquitex are golden. >> Great. And then thinking while we're on the kind of topic of tools, preferred brands, things like that, um if you were going to recommend a basic starter kit, tools, materials, PPE for a small institution that thinks that they might have a handful of mounts to do every year. Um so, you know, not high traffic, but kind of your starter kit. What would you recommend as great places to start, places that you might want to invest more money potentially because that tool is going to serve you better? Things like our our website on our training page, we have a video that we made about five years well. Yeah. And uh that does show some of our favorite tools in the shop and um >> we can also make a list available to to for you to put up for people. But I think if you have a very basic strap sander that's safe, uh some files, uh we both like Zeron pliers and parallel pliers, a good pair of nippers to cut the material with. Um we like the little torch, the jeweler's torch. Um they're relatively inexpensive. They're very small and userfriendly. Um or a map gas torch. Uh some soldering bricks. That's that's kind of the you can do a lot with very few things. Um when we do training, we we try to refer people uh we work with the clients as well to talk about what their setup is, what their space is going to look like, but we try to help people be as proficient as possible with as little as possible. Um we've been acquiring tools over the years, but we all came from the same foundational place of like less is more. And so, um, you can do a lot with a hammer, a piece of steel, a torch, a sander, and some good hand tools. >> And I'm going to share the link to your site in the chat, but also so everyone knows, we'll also be sharing a kind of resource list, which will include the slides from today's presentation, the video figure, um, and that's also where they'll be able to find the recording of this session as well. That way, you can kind of follow up and continue to explore. Um, we have a couple of questions about making mounts from things that need to be viewed from all angles, things delicate like a ring that could be covered by larger mounts. How do you balance those needs of support with also being able to clearly see the object? >> That's where templating and some forethought comes in. Um, if it's important for an object to be seen in the round, you want to spend a lot of time coming up with not only the most sort of visually stunning mount that you can or not stunning, you don't want to see it, but it also has to be very very strong. And so, um, especially with a smaller object like a ring, that's where we would probably turn to stainless steel, um, smaller material to get a little bit more strength out of it. Um, but you'll want to sort of template that and and come up with a plan of display. When you have objects like that as well, it's really important to know um that the design what the design intent is. You want to know what the case structure is, how it's going to be seen. Um, and then also know if there are any sort of conservation concerns with the object as well. Um, in painting is going to help with that as well. But at the bottom, at the end of the day, the the the safety and security of the mount is more important necessarily than the visual part. But if you play your cards right, you can you can work that out. Um we have a or um at American history, the prince, there's a prince's one of Prince's guitars on display in the round, and it's it's also at a jaunty angle. And so the mount really rides the curve of the object and then has mechanical fasteners, removable clips that hold the object on and then it has a single stem that comes to the floor. But it was very nerve-wracking to make that because it's such an iconic object. The color is very complicated, but we didn't want the mount to be distracting and so um it just takes a lot of planning and a lot of fitting. >> Thinking about planning and fitting. Um, a question about if you ever use 3D scanning to make models to allow for forming a mount with a model rather than the object. Um, so we we do a lot of work with the Getty in in Los Angeles. And one of the things uh usually a few times a year one of us goes out to work there. But one of the things that has been happening recently that we're excited about is that they're doing 3D scans of objects in Europe and Southeast Asia and and they send us the 3D prints. And the prints are getting good enough that they can we can work together to design the mounts. We can make the mounts here on the east coast, get them fit, get them padded, basically painted, and then ship them out to the Getty and either go out to help fit check them or or they do it themselves. And they're close enough that it it requires really minimal sort of tweaking to get them installed quickly. Um, the nice thing about that is we can fit that into our schedule when it works for us. um we don't have to sort of deal with the being away from home for long periods of time. 3D printing is amazing, but it is not the only resource for mount making. Um you're really not going to successfully 3D print a mount to hold an object. And if you are not familiar with the object and you have a 3D print, that object's not giving you the weight, the gravity, the conservation concerns. So, you have to have a really good relationship with whoever it is is doing the scanning so that you can properly plan a mount. So much of mount making isn't just putting an object on display, it's keeping it safe while it's on display. And the 3D prints, unfortunately, they don't they don't really give us that information. So, actually following up from that, thinking about the materiality of the objects, there's a question about how you determine the general weight guidelines behind the mounts. What helps you think about, you know, how much mechan do you does that weigh into it? Like how much mechanical support something needs to be rated for or things like that? >> Yes. Um, a lot of times with smaller objects, there's kind of a formula that we have. We know what material works best. Um, Erica has devised the boing test. If you take a stem for a mount and put it in a vise and pull on it and it vibrates back and forth, it's not thick enough. You don't want vibration to travel through an object because then it's just going to shake it all over the place and potentially fall on the floor. And so, so those are things that you want to take into consideration. As objects get heavier, then it goes into things like engineering, um, structural welding, thinking about what is the most appropriate material and making decisions based off of the size and scale of the object and not so much about what is cute or invisible or something like that. And so, um, when we kind of talk about knowing what your limitations are, if you have a very large object and you only have the capability to solder with brass, if you are uncomfortable with that, you want to think about that because if that solder joint is not is not, you know, isn't structurally sound, all the things that you do to fit the object won't matter because if it shears off there, it's just going to hit the floor. Um, if you're un unsure about things, there's different ways to kind of add straps in just to kind of create a fail safe for so that that that all of that sort of weight isn't located on one thing. You can add mechanical fasteners. Um, you just really have to kind of be honest with yourself about what you're doing and then um think about the material and and kind of test it out. If you find yourself bending long pieces of strap around something and as they go out they start flopping, that's not strong enough. And so instead of having a consistently long single piece of metal, you might want to have something that's bigger and thicker in the back behind the object and then taper it down to something that's thinner so that you can make sure that the the mount itself is not going to torque while the object is in it. Um, also we want to make mounts so that they don't move while they're in storage, um, you know, pre-installation because the worst thing in the world is to have one of your mounts just sort of tweak while you're handling it and then the object doesn't go on and, um, um, yeah, it can be very frustrating. Uh, while we're thinking about specific shapes, movements, um, a question about if you have any tips for coins or cylinders, thinking about things that might not lend themselves very easily to rigid supports. They noticed that they often have trouble swooping the coin into a classic three-prong spider. >> Erica just made like 500 coin mounts. >> 350 coin mounts, I think. Um, so what we found for coin mounts is, um, if it can tip back, that's going to give you, um, a lot of extra support. Um, and to do it as a, uh, like a a T. Um, and then bend those two T arms, the side ones, down a little bit. And, um, then you want the two tabs to go in like this. Then you have your upright, and your your upright is going to keep it from tipping. >> Yeah. And so you end up with um a shape that will take a lot of forgiveness as far as if the uh coin is a little larger or smaller. And um it it's pretty darn stable. Um you want to make sure though that that top and bottom have a really nice soft round uh finish to it because there is a little bit of you know uh it could araid there. Um but that is I think an amazing solution that I was really happy to find. She also made this sort of amazing template for measuring and working with the mounts. It's basically just like a bullseye, a series of circles with a center line in it so that you could put the mount through it and put the coin on it. And so that you always want to make sure that your arms are in the same location and and everything looks really intentional. And this is a great way also to know that your stem is at the center point of the coin so that it's not sort of migrating around. Um, so yeah, she's come up with very many clever clever ways of doing it. And those kinds of mounts you would want. A lot of the mounts that you did were stainless steel. >> Yes. >> I think they were all stainless. >> Yeah. And uh and clear coated. >> Mhm. >> And we have a question about how to tell if a mount is well fitted. Are there differences in fit that you might want for different types of materials also? So, is the fit that you prescribe for something that's made of wood different than maybe something that's made of ceramic or something made of stone? What kind of um benchmarks do you use for figuring out especially for things that may >> Yeah, it should feel like when it sits in there, it's not going to go side to side. It's not going to tip this way. If you rest it into the mount and it's sitting in the mount, there should be no movement. Yeah. >> And you should not be able to bump it and have it move. It should kind of And the word lock, you don't want to use lock because it's not grabbing it. >> Um, it you should be able to almost move it within the mount just a tiny tiny bit >> like like slide a piece of paper. You should be able to Yeah, that's you should be able to slide a piece of paper around every point and and that that's the kind of uh it should never be pinching anywhere, but it should be completely hugged and completely secure. >> We also talk about clickyness um and and a lot of times with our clients, we recommend that they they work they try putting our mounts objects on mounts. want them to feel it and people know when it fits right because it only fits one way and it's deeply satisfying to have an object go in. But sometimes there's this thing where it's like the mount is clicking the object is clicking against the mount like you're manipulating it in such a way. And so we try to avoid doing anything that is clicky. Um but also you need to know the objects. If you're working with something like Aboriginal bark paintings, that wood changes with the season and the temperature. So, you actually want to make a mount that is significantly larger that allows for the object to move without damaging it. You don't want to let it go wild, but you want to give it enough that it can fluctuate with with the sort of humidities. Um, so it's really just knowing what knowing what the object needs, but for the most part, it's it's a gentle notation. And you also want to always be thinking about the bottom support. You can't have it just grabbed like this cuz then the object's weight will shift it deeper and deeper into the mount over time, especially wood. I don't know how many objects we've tried to take out of a mount that was stuck. Yeah. For that reason. >> And also metal fatigue is something that you want to think about as well. That's why really carefully planning the material that you use for mounts is really important because just like anything else, prolonged kind of pressure in one point is either going to damage the object or it's going to cause the material to fatigue. So, you want to make sure that it it's a very it's a very tedious balance to make sure that that all of these things sort of stay safe. >> And sometimes you do have a mount that isn't great. you know, I of some of the mounts that I had there in the um uh in the presentation aren't perfect. When you put it in, there's a lot of work to get it in there, but it was a compromise cuz I didn't want to be adding attachments and sidearms and screws. And so, you know, sometimes you you have to make a compromise and kind of decide based on, you know, do we go for look or do we go for safety? >> Um it's never a perfect world. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. And then one kind of workflow question that's come up a couple times is what's the minimum amount of time you might give someone to um prepare amount of fitting per object especially if you're looking at beginners. How are people making sure that they're giving people enough time >> projects >> with a lot of the people that I have taught. I like to sit down and talk to their directors or their direct bosses. Um, for us when we estimate a job, we look in increments of five minutes, 10 minutes, 15 minutes, so that we really have a good grasp of how long something takes. But something that might take me 20 minutes to fit could take one of my students 4 hours to fit. Um, and so when you're learning, you should focus on quality over speed. You want accuracy. You want the time. Um, honestly, a half a day for a tiny mount for a new mount maker. um because you you want to get it right the first time and that's just for fitting, you know. Then you have to go through the process of painting and padding and fit checking and um we haven't really talked about it making a template for installation. There's a lot that goes into it and so it's important for institutions to understand that if they want people to start to learn, they have to give them the time and the space to do it. It's incredibly dangerous. It's incredibly stressful, especially when you're new. Um, you know, you have to have a lot of grace and patience for people. Um, for us, you know, we could show up, some days we have a goal of fitting 10 mounts in a day and sometimes it's one and sometimes it's 25. You don't really know how it's going to go. Um, and uh, so if you're planning a big exhibition and you want to train someone and and make them do that big exhibition, it's probably going to be problematic and also not fair to that person. So, you want to you want to plan as much time as humanly possible. Um, one of the things too that we talk about when you get into the install of the exhibit, it's it's really hard to install five days or in a row for weeks on end. you want to do two days or one or two days or have a break in the middle. You need to kind of step away from that because physically it's very taxing and it becomes really dangerous for the objects. Um you know you want to you want to give yourself as much time as possible. I think sometimes the museums now there's so much work and there's so much pressure to get jobs done and everyone constantly gets it done so the schedules get smaller and smaller and smaller and and until something catastrophic happens it's everyone is just working really hard to maintain that schedule and really it needs to pull back a little bit. There needs to be more planning more time especially with with new museum people who are who are just getting started. >> Yeah. and making a mount is very little of it is just bending the metal. It's so much about planning communic communication is one of the biggest parts and you know there's just so much other stuff in getting an exhibit on uh to work and it's not really just the mounts. It's >> and honestly >> case we find ourselves being advocates for the objects. You know, when we look at designs, the designs are really pretty and and this looks really pretty and this is really amazing, but when you start to pull back that schedule and you start to really look at things, it's not a reality until the safety of the object is considered. And so, just because you drew it to fit in this box doesn't mean that it's going to fit in that box. And so, mount makers really are advocating >> if nobody measured it, >> right? Exactly. >> Because why would you? >> No, there's no reason to, right? >> Yeah. We also find ourselves helping to change the context of objects. We generally try not to present things in a sensational way, especially if it's sensitive objects. You know, I don't want I don't want to make a mount that has a culturally sensitive object in a culturally sensitive way that's sort of in your face. Like you want to treat everything with respect and not change the narrative of the object. You want to present the object as cleanly and and politely as possible without a lot of sensationalism. >> Well, on that wonderful very human note, reminding us to take time to care for ourselves, time to care for the objects in our care, um, and being thoughtful about that practice. I want to acknowledge we are at time. I want to thank Erica and Jen so much for their wonderful openness and the great presentation they provided today. I'm going to drop it's on your website. So, I'm dropping your email in the chat because we did unfortunately have several questions that we couldn't get to that were really fantastic still. So, please do reach out to Erica and Jen if you have follow-up questions about today's webinar. We'll be posting um additional information uh resources on the site. I'm also going to drop the link into the chat. You'll be getting an email with a request to participate in the survey to give them some feedback on this presentation and let us know uh what additional topics or further dives into mountmaking potentially uh would be helpful for our audience. And thank you so much to our presenters and for all of our audience members for bringing their wonderful questions. And thank you so much for everyone for joining. >> Thank you very much for having us.