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Prepping ACM
GTO
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This is a good video on cutting and prepping ACM Dibond panels by Aaron Nagel.
I like the groovy music he plays while cutting and prepping the panel. 😀
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nPM9lZPx17Y
I like the groovy music he plays while cutting and prepping the panel. 😀
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nPM9lZPx17Y
Comments
Just about every artist makes heavy weather of cutting ACM.
‘Here is the smart way to score and snap ACM. Sorry. No groovy music.
https://youtu.be/XcjjoOXHISs
Denis
@TamDeal – I have tried the 2 mm ACM and thought it was too flimsy for me in the sense that it is easily bent with my typical handling techniques. Also, storing multiples is problematic because they are so fragile. It may work for you, especially in the 5x7 small size.
I dislike prepping substrates, and so tend to do it in big batches – 20 or more at a time. I line them up on big tables, little tables, - any and every surface will do.
I have a big cup of coffee. I am still using
up the last batch I did in 2020.
Because I am paranoid about prepping correctly, I seal first (US-based XIM-UM, although @Abstraction had better information on this from his discussions at MITRA – I hope he chimes in), including the tiny little sides, and then the next day I put on an acrylic ground – not traditional gesso.
Sealer: I use a roller. Sometimes I use a disposable sponge brush. Rollers are faster, but the outcome is the same for me.
Ground: I use an old credit card first to spread around, and then immediately after a roller for a smoother surface. Sometimes I’ll go over the surface crisscrossing with a bristle brush, to reproduce canvas weave. I also have created a slight patterned texture in different patterns which I quite like under my thin oil paint layers.
What I don’t understand about ACM concerns the very thin oxygenated layer which forms on the aluminum immediately, and which metallurgists claim is stable (self-sealing) and will not increase. The art forums by and large state that this layer is not stable and will continue to deteriorate, chipping off your paint layer in the process, but have not cited any evidence which I am aware of.
If anyone can weigh in, I’d appreciate it. If it is true that the thin aluminum rust will not increase, then the entire premise that it is necessary to use the unbroken plastic coating is wrong, and this opens up wonderful possibilities for us cost-wise.
What I don’t understand about ACM concerns the very thin oxygenated layer which forms on the aluminum immediately, and which metallurgists claim is stable (self-sealing) and will not increase. The art forums by and large state that this layer is not stable and will continue to deteriorate, chipping off your paint layer in the process, but have not cited any evidence which I am aware of.
If anyone can weigh in, I’d appreciate it. If it is true that the thin aluminum rust will not increase, then the entire premise that it is necessary to use the unbroken plastic coating is wrong, and this opens up wonderful possibilities for us cost-wise.
If aluminium is stored in environments without major temperature fluctuations and not exposed to moisture, the oxide layer without further surface treatment will protect the metal against corrosion.
It varies. I have bought ‘bare’ aluminium composite sheets, but probably had a clear coat of some description. Other products were seemingly bare Aluminium plate with a tooth and a patterned texture under shrink wrap.
You’re right to say that most of the time it is coil coated.
Denis
@Richard_P – I agree with @dencal; it depends on the aluminum panel. Panels without the polyester coating are cheaper, or at least they were cheaper last time I checked.
I have read on other art forums of different people being concerned that they have accidentally pierced the polyester coating by scruffing it up too much in an effort to create a mechanical tooth, and being informed that this means the aluminum will corrode, the corrosion will continue, there is nothing to stop it, and the ACM is now no longer acceptable as a substrate as the oil paint will flake off. No evidence at all cited for this. This now-common belief about ACM and the polyester/plastic coating has now become community wisdom, AKA folklore.
On a non-DMP forum, I tried posting my inexpert research from metallurgical sources about the robustness of the aluminum oxide layer, to having it rejected immediately as having not been proven by art conservationists! So much for primacy of source material for research. Nobody would even consider it. Alas, my tech geek demon and I are sadder but wiser.
If the aluminum oxide provides a stable enough surface to seal and prime, then we can use surfaces without the polyester – so cheaper aluminum panels, and also the other side of a failed painting, can be used.
Yes. But what proportion of these ancient and venerable works : cracked, delaminated, faded, sank, twisted, warped, moulded, stained, slumped, bubbled, rippled, ripped, pocked, creased, shrunk, saponified, and are no longer a part of posterity.
The incompatible collection of canvas chemical cakes currently in museums are kept alive by an army of conservators in a hugely expensive, air conditioned, white cube.
—-ooOoo—-
This is over 40 years old now. Aluminium composites, PVC, Mylar and Polypropylene, copper and aluminium plate would likely change the emphasis on polyester fabric. Nonetheless it sets out some of the deficiencies in linen and cotton as a painting support.
Denis
I read that a few years back. I still use canvas. I will try aluminium someday. Painting has gotten in the way of me giving much thought to it.
I will buy a couple of meters and give it a try it. It is said to be highly archival. One poster mentioned that it stays taught unlike canvas which contracts and expands with changing conditions. If that is true, and if the surface is nice to paint on once primed with gesso, I may switch to polyester.