Cutting Your Own Matboard - Couple o' Questions

[Helen B]

your maths way wrong, you can only get two 16x20's from a 32x40.

You are joking, aren't you?

 

[astrostu]

Thanks for all the discussion! I've been keeping quiet because it's becomming clear that I need to make some sort of spreadsheet with what I want and what my options are in terms of custom vs. equipment to do it myself and the various retailers and if there's anything local. If more people (or the same people) have more input, please discuss away!

And yeah, Helen's right, you get 4 16x20 from a 32x40. Remember, 2-D area not 1-D length.

 

[newrmdmike]

holy crap . . . embarresing

 

[Mesoam]

i get large sheets from Michaels Crafts...but then i realized just how much is suck at cutting mat board...and so i still go to Michaels but i just tell them what size mat i want...Pricing for the board isn't bad and is more than worth the extra $ for the hastel saved...

i also go to yard sales for frames and typically can find many large ones (normally with god awful prints in them)

a quick sand and stain or repaint and you have a great frame

 

[wildmaven]

Cutting my own mats wouldn't be worth my time, so I get mine from http://ezmats.com

I have never had a problem with them, and the shipping is pretty fast.

 

[JIP]

I am still trying to figure out unless you are cutting very specialisd sizes why bother going to the expense and hassle of cutting your own mats when you are printing at Costco??.

 

[D-50]

There is no reason to not cut your own mattes if you frame things regularly. I have a logan matte cutter cost me $120 or so and I believe its about 30"wide. Literally anyone with half a brain can cut a perfect matte with a matte cutter (not just the beveled blade but a cutter complete with a straight edge that hooks into the beveled cutter) Dick Blicks is a great place for matte board runs anywhere from 5 to 10 for 32"x40". When Im framing for home use I use a double matte and buy the cheaper matte board when framing for a client or show I use the hgher quality matte board. Also at Dick Blicks you get a discount for buying ten or more boards so if you know that in the future your going to use that much you can save another 10% I believe. Also A matte cutter is going to allow you to cut custom mattes of any size, this is very useful when building your own frames. Furthermore sizes like 16x20 or 8x10 are ridiculous considering most cameras shoot in 1:1.5 so your photo size is going to be 16x24 or 8x12. It reminds me of hotdogs coming in ten packs but buns coming in eight packs, makes no sense.

 

[astrostu]

I am still trying to figure out unless you are cutting very specialisd sizes why bother going to the expense and hassle of cutting your own mats when you are printing at Costco??.

What D-50 said - I do a lot of panoramas. They are very irregular sizes, like 12"x38.64" an' stuff like that.

 

[nikonnut]

You can indeed get four 16 x 20 mats from a 32 x 40, but your cuts would have to be dead-on with no margin for error.

 

[KmH]

Since this thread died back in 2007, I doubt anyone other than Helen B that had posted in the thread is still an active TPF member.