MOUNTED DISPLAY CARDS
(or "Excuse Me Sir, Is This a Tube?")

Get ready to learn more than you ever thought was possible about easels, cardboard, mounted display cards - and your finisher's three worst fears!

There are many kinds of display cards and lots of ways to make them, but in this article we'll only be discussing display cards that are manufactured by mounting (gluing) paper stock to some type of cardboard, then trimming to finished size and attaching an easel.

OK, I won't make you wait till the end: your finisher's three worst fears are curl, curl, and more curl. In this article, we'll see what steps will ensure the flattest displays.

The dreaded curl usually occurs when a card loses or gains moisture more on one side than the other, and much of the following discussion addresses various ways to equalize or compensate for this uneven moisture change.

Your Printed Sheets

Let's start by considering the printed sheet you furnish to your finisher. First and foremost, allow trim on your press sheet and stay away from the guillotine cutter. In the mounting operation your printed sheet is glued to a cardboard sheet, and the resulting mounted sheet has a rough edge that must be trimmed. Printing several display cards on a sheet can save a lot of mounting time. So, as a rule, send us the printed sheets as they are delivered from your press. When setting up the imposition for a mounting job, place items close together (double eighth bleed is fine) to minimize the waste of cardboard, paste, and labor.

The basis weight of your printed sheets has much to do with the quality of the finished product. Even the smoothest sheet of cardboard is rougher than the surface of the printed sheet, and we don't want that roughness to show through. The minimum paper weight for a decent job is 60 lb in an uncoated sheet, 70 lb in a C1S sheet, and 80 lb in a C2S sheet. Lighter stocks show all the unevenness of the underlying cardboard and tend to wrinkle.

Cardboard

Cardboard is manufactured in "smooth," "medium" and "rough" surface textures. The board industry measures the smoothness of board with a "finish" scale where 2100 or less is considered smooth, 2200 to 2400 is considered medium, and anything 2500 and over is considered to be rough. The rough surface board is great for the local laundry to put in your shirts, and the medium is OK for easels, but for mounting board, smooth (a finish of 2100 or lower) is what you want.

Don't be thrown by thickness of the cardboard. Thickness is a function of the amount of fiber in the board and the pressure used in making the sheet. A good, smooth (2100 finish) mounting sheet .050" thick contains approximately the same amount of cardboard as a medium finish (2400) board .060" thick. In this case the thinner board will be more rigid, will tend to gain and lose moisture less, and will be smoother than the thicker board. Don't be fooled into thinking that a thicker board will give you a better job, or that the end result will contain more fiber - it may just be more rough. A very thick display card doesn't curl less, it's just harder to straighten out if it does curl. Specify smooth board for mounting and don't worry about caliper - .050" usually does a nice job for all but the largest displays.

Back of the Display Card

The treatment of the back (unmounted) side of the board has a definite effect on the curl resistance of the finished job. The standard, and least expensive mounting board, is vat lined. In vat lined board the final layer of fibers (fibers from the final vat) are white. This white layer of fibers is cosmetic but doesn't offer any resistance to curl. The next most expensive type of mounting board is book lined. This stock is plain chipboard that has had a 50 lb uncoated white sheet of paper mounted to one side. It offers somewhat greater curl resistance than vat lined board at a higher price.

The most effective curl-resistant method is to mount the same paper stock on the back of the card as on the front. While this is the most expensive way to do a job, it ensures that moisture will enter and leave the stock at the same rate from either side, consistently providing the most stable results.

Easels

Easels are the simple part. They come in single wing (one triangular wing folds back) and double wing (you guessed it - two triangular wings fold back). Sizes range from 4" to 50" tall. They are either plain old cardboard gray or they are white. The only differences between gray and white easels are color and price.

You guessed it again: single wing easels cost less and are the usual choice for a vertical (taller than wide) display card that has no pockets and no pads attached. Double wing easels offer greater stability and are the best choice for display cards with pads and/or pockets. Horizontal display cards usually will lean just fine on a double wing easel if the width is less than 150% of the height, and on two single wings if the width exceeds 150% of the height.

The most common display card is usually made with grain vertical to prevent sag, and is supported by an easel 75% of the height of the display card. A better alternative to consider with vertical format cards is to run the display card grain horizontally and spend a little extra for the stiffening effect of a full height easel.

Let's Review. . .

The least expensive model display card will be on vat lined board, grain vertical with a single wing easel approximately 75% of its height (watch out, this sucker is likely to curl). The next model will still be on vat lined board, but we'll run the grain horizontal and add stiffness vertically with a full height easel (a good compromise of economy vs. performance). The top-of-the-line model is lined with the same stock used for the printed sheet on the front. This, our fanciest model, has horizontal grain and a full height, white easel (simply elegant).

You get the point. There are many variations to think about, so be sure you and your finisher are leaning on the same easel.

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