How Do You Affix Mounts To Your Album Pages?

Can someone who uses open top (Hawid) mounts address question #2, where do you apply the moisture (or other adhesive)?

I reuse mounts (removed from collections I've purchased) often, while putting together exhibits and such. Instead of moistening the mounts, I just use stamp hinges to attach the mounts to the page. This preserves the stamp, the mount, and the pages if I want to use them again.

If you don't care about removing the mount/keeping the pages, you can use glue stick to paste the mount to the page, but you have to be careful if you use that to be certain the paste can't touch the stamp. Just put a dot in the center of the flap, don't let it go anywhere near the side of the mount, and to be doubly safe, let the mount dry onto the page before placing the stamp inside.

Either way is safer than fully moistening the mount. You know how some hinged collections end up stuck down because the collector had a "fat tongue" and put too much moisture on the hinges? That can happen with black mounts too. Real sad when you see a page full of neatly mounted stamps, but the stamps can't be removed from the mount without damage because moisture snuck through the split in the back.

Like Rod, I too use double-sided tape, as suggested to me by "Postmaster GS".

I have been making hingeless pages for my state revenue collections using Hawid clear top loaders.

I use a small appetizer sauce dish swiped from my wife's collection of 692 specialty food dishes (+ or -) with just a small amount (3 mm) water in the bottom, and use Q-tips. Don't soak the Q-tip!

Start from the center bottom of the back (adhesive) side of the mount, and wipe out to the edge. Come back to the center and do the opposite side. For small mounts I may wet 5 mm of the mount, and for larger mounts I wet maybe 10 mm.

Most of the Hawid mounts will have the adhesive turn a milky white color when you wet them, some will not. Obviously easier to see the milky adhesive to see how much you have wet.

I prefer clear mounts for one reason. The mounts are very fiddly and it is very difficult to get multiple mounts on a page all perfectly aligned. For me, the black mounts are obviously out of alignment, and it gets my OCD all fired up. Clear doesn't look as nice, but it hides the wonky mounts...

Another tip is to have oblique lighting very harshly from the side. I have found better results when I actually put the mounts on the pages to do that part at night so I can better see where they are on the page.

I also use 120 pound paper. Doesn't wrinkle and feels nice.

Hope that helps!

Open top mounts

Double sided tape, pull out 20 mm tape from dispenser
snip of 2-3mm (It sticks to the scissors)
Place the scissor end on the mount about one third down,
press the sticky bit on the mount with your fingernail.
All happens in a couple of seconds.

Place the mount in it's square (It's OK it won't stick) adjust till its square to the page.
Press...done

Large mounts need 2-3 snips
Souvenir sheets 3-4 at least one, top and bottom.

Repeat ad nauseum.

StateRevs and rod222, if I understand what you are both saying, StateRevs moistens the adhesive at the bottom of the mount and rod222 applies the double sided tape horizontally about a third of the way down from the top.

I notice that my Lighthouse Canada album also has the mounts affixed at the very bottom. Is there some advantage to doing that way? I worry a bit that I might end up with the stamp behind the mount rather than in the mount!

Anghus,
Your lighthouse possibly was created by bottom gummed clear mounts from the factory.

Just get stuck in, you're going to make mistakes, but you'll learn from them.
What I do, suits me, from 12 years of collecting, doesn't suit others, everyone has differing ways of doing things.

I use long nosed pointy tongs, others dislike them, I lift the front of the mount and pop the stamp in, when changing stamps in "open top"
I put the stamp in the mount strip, cut the mount with the stamp inside,
and mount with the stamp inside, others swear against it.

Any collection is around 3,000 - 5,000 stamps, so you'll want your routine
down pat if the collection is to look consistant.

Make a few pages if you like 'em continue, if not ditch and start again.

Ahh... So the mounts used at the factory to make a hingeless album only have gum at the bottom, not on the entire back? I have never bought any top loading mounts, are they all made that way?

I just make top loading mounts by cutting split back mounts in half along split. After seeing a Palo album, my mounts are just as good. I moisten them at top.

Angus, my only experience is taking stamps from hingeless pages, ripped from collections sold on the internet.
There are a vast array of differing combinations.

Make you preference after searching all the mount producers.

I do the same as Angore, cut split backs, mounts are expensive, I use whatever I can get my hands on, cheap. Avoid any crinkly, they are worthless.

Your biggest decision is to go black or clear.

One day the plastic will get hard and cracky and your stamps will affix to them like a crash in the old laminated windshield cars and you or your children will be bemoaning that you gave up hinges for plastic.

Hawid mounts have adhesive on the entire back.

My opinion is you do not want to wet the entire mount and stick it to the page. Doesn't allow any flex and my guess is they would be more likely to pop off the page or possibly crease the contents (your stamps).

Clear mounts are what nearly all makers of hingeless albums use. To me, clear mounts look best, but I certainly don't dislike black-backed mounts. They're very elegant if done right. But getting them onto the page in a nice straight line is a pain, and invariably one stamp will be too low or too high. So I avoid black mounts. LIning up clear mounts is much easier. And I really like the look of clear mounts. They look elegant to me. And if you cut your own mounts, black backed mounts will show your uneven cutting of the edges pretty noticeably unlike clear mounts which are more forgiving.

As for how to attach them to the page, the Marini albums I own have the open-topped clear mounts glued with a very thin strip of glue at the bottom of each mount. But the mounts also fall off the pages at times. So maybe that's not a good method. I think they just need more glue on them, including some farther up the back of the mount. Split back mounts can easily allow the moisture inside the mount and onto the stamp through the back opening. Not good. An open top mount is less likely to do that, I think. But I like split back mounts because they hold the stamp more securely. Open topped mounts allow my stamps to slide around and fall out too often. I've never tried removable tape or glue sticks but they're worth trying even on mounts.

When I attach a mount, the rule for me is never to put the stamp into the mount until the mount is on the page and dry. I generally lick the mount very lightly. I don't think which part of the back you lick makes a lot of difference. I wish they'd make mounts with removable glue, but maybe removable tape is the answer to that problem. And I still use hinges for used and inexpensive stamps. Hinges are much cheaper and they avoid the problem of pages becoming so heavy and thick with mounts that the album bulges too much. Another reason I prefer clear mounts since hinged stamps don't combine well with black-backed mounts because they're too different. Clear mounts go well with hinged stamps.

I've never used a Q-tip to moisten the back of mounts (or hinges!) but I may try doing that. I tend to trust my tongue to apply just a very small amount of moisture. I prefer a few "dots" of moisture rather than a wide swipe of it, but I don't suppose it matters very much how you do it -- as long as you're self-controlled and use only a small amount.

Regarding Apastuzak's suggestion to use Tombow adhesive tape. I recently decided to use this product on all of my mounts. However, I use the removable adhesive version. If I misalign the mount, I can easily reposition it. If you wish to remove the mount for whatever reason, you can easily rub the adhesive off the album page. No residue is evident. Another version is the ek tools Herma dotto reposition adhesive. It is slightly more sticky but it too can be easily removed from the page by rubbing the residue with your finger. Regardless, I never use it directly on a stamp.

Will the adhesive dry up and will the mounts come loose over time? I don't know. But for now they work just fine.

The mounts are permanently affixed to the page. They also make a "repositionable" adhesive that can be removed easily, but my experience with that is that it doesn't hold to the page as well as I would like.

https://www.amazon.com/Tombow-62108.../B000XAN5U4/