Talk:Mat (picture framing)

message: Should the passepartout disambiguation entry link here? SaintCahier (talk) 20:00, 18 February 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, I am being bold and doing it. ;-) SaintCahier (talk) 01:57, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Passepartout

message: That... ended up being pleasantly longer and fuller than I expected. :D Will add pictures soon! Runa27 22:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: More to it than you might think!

message: I'm of a mind to think we have an almost admirably clever spammer that added "references" to this. Why do I say this? Because there was an awful lot of excess talk of "how to do Conservation Framing Technique" (with Random Capitals and everything), plus a lot of Random Capitalized Terms like Archival Mounting Board, which OK, I could maybe accept might just be someone a little overeager to inform who has a slightly pompous tendency to over-capitalize... were it not for the fact that that same section claimed that there is no such thing as "archival foamcore" (uh, yes there is. It's called Artcare. I know, I've bought framing materials before, including backing, and my mother uses it in art restoration and document archival) and uses, as its sole reference for all the stuff it says about framing, reference #4... a link which reads "Download PDF tips on Acid Free Components".
This link sounds vaguely innocuous until you realize it leads to THIS:  which is actually not a specific PDF on the matter of "acid-free components", but rather a website which features a PDF-format magazine series  of sorts for would-be DIY out-your-own-home picture framers. Which is free to the end-user, and which I have read a couple of issues from and found relatively little to say is inaccurate in, and therefore ostensibly it's not a bad source, per se, on every subject, at first glance... 
...however, said e-zine issues also tend to incessantly promote Framing4Yourself.com's own DIY framing products... including things like custom-cut Plexiglas, plastic cleaner (for Plexiglas, aka acrylic glass), etc. that you could also get elsewhere just as easily (also, their claim that Plexi and regular glass are "equivalent" in price made me do a double-take, considering that I've not found that to be the case ever since oil - which is what acrylic glasses are derived from, being plastics - started jumping super-high in price, particularly when paired with the claim that regular glass tends to come in "dirty" i.e. dusty which has never been the case with our suppliers. This makes me suspicious that the author(s) of the article in question have in fact not done framing with regular suppliers before and in fact, are trying to promote their own products which I assume they charge "equivalent" prices on. Can't help but notice no mention was made of UV-blocking glass in that article either, probably because the company doesn't provide it is my guess!). 
Said 'zines also place a suspiciously high emphasis on how you could support yourself doing DIY framing out of your own home... using, of course, their products. Of course. These include weird claims like how you'll save money running a framing business and therefore make more, by doing it out of your own home and charging up to 70% less(!), compared to those regular frame shops, that charge sooooo much more and have like, trouble competing with "big box stores". This is only half-right though; while the cost of renting a space and all certainly figures into the prices (as it would with any retail outfit, I would assume), the idea that "big box stores" are cheaper than indies is weird, considering that in our area, Micheal's (which they reference specifically) tends to be close to our prices... when they're running a major sale. I am of course not saying that this is the same for every store (and I will not name my own family's store unless asked, because I am here to actually contribute to the quality of the page, not promote a business), but it seems so very odd to me for that link to go to a page that includes stuff like that, as opposed to a direct link to a PDF about the actual content the link claimed and that the reference itself claimed, unless, you know, they're trying to use Wikipedia to drum up business. Which explain the random capitalization of things like Archival Mounting Board, which I would not be at all surprised to find would be a search term associated with their site. Don't even get me started on how little room most people have in their homes for the kind of equipment (mat and glass cutters, fitting table, moulding-appropriate saws, etc.) and products (large sticks of moulding, 32x40 inch mat sheets, etc.), let alone samples (you think the hundreds of mat samples in that one pic look like a lot? How about hundreds or thousands of moulding corner samples?) required for such a business... not saying it's impossible, but the level of sheer optimism their e-zine has for such framers being actually monetarily successful is kind of stunning, which shouldn't actually be a surprise considering how much they promote their website's materials, aimed at just such a market.
Also, I double-taked when I read here, as well, that non-archival mats are not a big deal unless you "want it to last over 75 years". This is a pretty big surprise to me, considering my mother's (conservation!) framing and art restoration business has seen mat burn (which only comes from acidic mats, mind) on pieces framed  only 12-14 years ago. Unless you don't consider "keeping it looking exactly like it did when you first put it in the frame" to be part of "lasting 75 years", this seems like, well... an inaccurate claim, or at least an awkward one. And once again (and going back to something I mentioned before), the (wrong) assertion that there is no such thing as "archival foamboard", which may well have simply seemed an understandable error on the part of someone not familiar with current makes of foamcore... suddenly seems an awful lot like it could be a matter of them trying to peddle their "Archival Mounting Board" because they don't happen to sell Bainbridge's Artcare boards.
I am not 100% saying it HAD to be a spammer that did all that (Assume Good Faith and all that...). Nor would I suggest that framing supply sites and DIY framing sites can't add useful information to the page, as I myself only first heard the term "outgassing" from Bainbridge's website, and reference that as my source over on the foamcore page (though I did some online digging to make sure it wasn't just a made-up marketing term, obviously, and couched it in terms of the company "claiming" that it did those things. I'm not an idiot, after all). 
But I am saying it's a rather suspicious turn of events, particularly the "reference" that appears stunningly suited towards snagging people who search for basic framing terms on Google or Wikipedia because they're interested in framing something... into reading the e-zines which, curiously enough, seem to promote an awful lot of DIY framing products from that exact same website's store. 
They're making it really hard to Assume Good Faith. They really are. Thoughts, anyone? 70.152.236.80 (talk) 22:50, 14 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: Sorry for the length of this explanation, but do we possibly have some sneaky spam?