How to protect a wood mounted poster

July 14, 2005 7:37 AM

My wife and I are building a collage of movie poster details for our theater, but I'm having problems coming up with a good way to mount them. I have an idea, but I'm not sure if it will work.

Here's the premise: we take a movie poster (i.e. The Graduate) and cut out a 12" by 12" detail (like Hoffman's face with Bancroft's leg above it). We're going to have 18 of these details strecthing across a long wall. Here's the picture that gave us the idea.

My wife wants to use album frames to protect the posters, but I'd rather do it myself and save some money. Here's what I'm thinking:

Cut a 4'x8' sheet of 1/2 inch MDF board into 18 pieces. Sand the edges and spray them flat black. Use a thin layer of paper-safe epoxy and apply the detail... so far so good. Now that I have a wood mounted detail, how do I protect the poster from the elements (fingerprints, dirt, dust, etc.)? Is there some sore of spray-on protectant I could use?

Art.com uses a protective film on their wood mounted posters, but they don't specify what it is, or how they apply it. Laminating would be too costly, so that's out of the question. What should/can we do? Thanks!

posted by bjork24 to media & arts (6 comments total)

Overlaminates, or as the British call them, sticky back plastic. Basically large sheets of self adhesive clear film. They should stock them in your local crafts store.
posted by cillit bang at 7:49 AM on July 14, 2005

"some sore of spray-on" = "some SORT of spray-on"
posted by bjork24 at 7:50 AM on July 14, 2005

Wow I love the album frames! I'm ordering some right now, thanks for the link.

My husband's mounted some posters on wood, and he put two coats of clear polyurethane on top of each one, applied with a brush just for varnishes and polys, that you can get at any paint store. Worked like a champ. There's one hanging on a wall in my son's room that was done about 10 years ago and it still looks great.
posted by iconomy at 8:13 AM on July 14, 2005

Clear poly or super blonde shellac. The poly will be more durable but the shellac can be restored.

Epoxy is probably over kill for mounting. A MDF safe contact cement (IE: not latex) will be cheaper and easier to work with. If you have access to a router, a straight bit and a template used after mounting the poster will make quick work of finishing the edges and triming the poster to exact size. Or get a little fancy with a 1/2" quarter round or ogee bit.
posted by Mitheral at 9:19 AM on July 14, 2005

Please don't cut up original movie poster one-sheets (I.E. you mentioned "The Graduate") to do this project. ;) Modern (cheap) reprints will hold up better for what you are describing.
posted by jca at 9:51 AM on July 14, 2005

I second jca - seems a waste of material. Considering you don't want an exact movie poster look, why not take a digital picture and give it some effect? Posterizing would be fun or any of a number of other Photoshop-esque effects. Lemmie give a quick run...

Here's just the first 15 photoshop filters applied to an image i googled up. http://photos22.flickr.com/25950684_d6d4fd2a0d_o.jpg

Yeah yeah copyright blah blah. If you look on ebay you'll find a lot of promo packages and photos so you can be legit in your source. You should be able to get photo prints from your digital image in 11x14 and crop them at a comparitively affordable price.
posted by phearlez at 10:50 AM on July 14, 2005