I have a question about suitable display board materials for permanent use underground.

I am working through the displays in the Reigate Caves, and so far have been using A3 laminates of most items we have on display. This works well for the majority of the items we have - they are easy to mount, and easy to wipe down when they get dusty or damp.

I now want to put up 4 A1 sized photographs, and this is beyond our voluntary capabilities, so we need to get a commercial printer to do this for us.

Ideally, I would like to have them printed direct to a rigid board, and hang them as supplied directly onto the wall. The printer I have spoken to says he can print direct to foamboard so there is no paper involved with the attendant risk of damp and mould. However, one or two people have suggested that mould might well still take hold on the surface and might permanently stain them.

An alternative is to get the images printed onto A1 paper and then professionally laminated, but we would then have to mount them onto boards, and the gloss finish might well cause reflection problems in the locations we want to put them up.

Before we make a decision, has anybody had experience of putting foamboard displays underground, and have you had any problems with damp or mould?

Might be worth asking these people:

http://www.armourseal.co.uk/ 

Cheers

I have had stuff printed onto that plastic foam board. It has been out in the weather for two years now and still fine.
We used laminated display boards at Temple Mine as a temporary measure some years ago - they don't last long before the mould gets in. Laminated stuff is not a proper seal.

Proper museum display boards tend to be silk screen printed onto something like formica sheet. Very durable unless in direct sunlight but very expensive.

Proper museum display boards tend to be silk screen printed onto something like formica sheet. Very durable unless in direct sunlight but very expensive.

>£1k for an A0 I'm afraid - but they'd probably last a couple of decades away from UV. Time for a cost compasion of ten or twenty laminated prints against one external grade museum-style panel?

Thank you that is interesting. The use of A3 DIY lamination is a compromise between cost and perfection. All the originals are available as MS documents of some sort or PDFs, and can easily be printed again if they deteriorate. We trim all the paper so that there is something like a 10mm sealing margin around the edges. Colour printing seems better done by laser printer than inkjet as the colour ink from an inkjet runs badly under the lamination over time.

As these larger boards will be on prominent display, we want to get it right so I think we will have to watch them closely in the first year to see if anything takes up home on them, and try to take remedial action if we see anything. We don't over-skimp on spending money, but there is a limit to what we are happy to spend, and it is all the more disappointing when something that has cost a fair bit doesn't stand the test of time.

I asked the question in case anybody had a bad experience of the foamboards, so as to save us the hassle of finding out the hard way. It is by far my preferred option for these boards, if only for the better appearance they have.

Proper museum display boards tend to be silk screen printed onto something like formica sheet. Very durable unless in direct sunlight but very expensive.

>£1k for an A0 I'm afraid - but they'd probably last a couple of decades away from UV. Time for a cost compasion of ten or twenty laminated prints against one external grade museum-style panel?

£40 plus VAT for an A1 "foamtex" panel - that may or may not be expensive but the printer seems like a very helpful company and is very conveniently 5 minutes walk from where I work.

I work in the large format trade, and i can tell you that you need probable 3 mm foames and uv resistant inks that are waterproof. Find someone who can print direct onto it and not onto vinyl and then mounted like we do as its not as good.

A place like service graphics can do it as they nomaly do our larger than 1220 x 2400 which is the largest commercial board normally done.

Ignore corex which is the plastic carboard (house for sale) stuff as you can just pull that of the wall.

I hope that helps.

Pace

It does, Pace. 🙂 This place I went to said they could print direct onto the board. They showed me a sample, and although I didn't ask, it did look about 3mm thick. The location is underground and should never get UV exposure.

Just a wild idea, how about casting what you need in two-component clear polyester resin?

http://www.elichem.co.uk/p-5-glass-clear-polyester-casting-resin.aspx 

You can make a simple mould out of Lego bricks on a sheet of glass - I've done it often for casting parts for modelling 1/35 scale vehicles in coloured resin.

Pour a backing layer, let it cure, put the picture on it and pour the covering layer. Put a piece of plastic tubing at each corner of the mould and you can even cast the screw holes.

Seems to be one of the cheapest options, too.

The only problem I see is potentially high temperatures in the curing phase that might damage the picture.