Proper Use Of Hawid Glue Pen To Resize A Showgard Mount

Eons ago my local stamp dealer showed me how to use a Hawid glue pen and the accompanying metal ruler to resize (shorten) a Showgard mount. Well I just effed up an expensive 229mm mount which I wanted to shorten to 223. I cannot find a video showing how to do this correctly. The included instruction sheet is geared towards sealing up a top loading mount. Can anyone help me out?

Lol, these were my second and third posted pics when I joined back in 2014.
I have a Hawid profiled ruler and glue stick, with the instruction sheet, which , unfortunately, is only pictures.

From the image, is the intent to seal the top of a HAWID mount?

Bob, cut the effed 229mm mount to 223 plus the width of other seam, hold the ruler down tightly and apply glue, re-attach.
I used this to custom size Showgard splitback mounts. Worked well.

Thanks Phil. That sounds like the instructions the dealer gave me years ago. I effed up by trying to do the ruler/glue thing on the outside face of the mount. Also, it appears that my glue is pretty much dried out and I need a new pen.

I used to do this quite a bit, particularly with souvenir sheets and other odd-size items, of which mid-century Japan had quite a few. With a little practice, I got them looking, I think, very professional.

One of the tricks I used, before cutting the top of mount to the new height, was to stick a post-it or two on the back of the mount along the seam of the split back. This helped hold the upper half of the back of the mount perfectly in place after that top cut was made and before the glue was applied.

And that little metal "ruler" is absolutely essential to getting a nice even bead of glue and thus a nice-looking seam once you set back down the front "flap" of the mount on the back part of the mount. As of about 5 years ago, I had heard that metal piece had gotten hard to come by. I hope that problem has been solved. I cannot imagine how to perform that operation successfully without it.

I think those diagrams are a bit confusing, and the one thing I would definitely *not do* is to perform this operation with the stamp in the mount. That just seems like disappointment waiting to happen.

Two other tips I can think of:

-- I would practice a few times on some mount scrap or on cheaper common-size mounts until you get good at it.

-- The only cutting device that I found worked well and had a very clean cut -- for either the normal vertical cuts you do anyway or this special horizontal cut -- was the small Showgard "mini-guillotine". (I think that's what it's called.) I tried over the years using other, nicer, more expensive cutters, and just could not get the cuts to look smooth and professional. And even then, that little cutter seemed to work best only with some leftward pressure applied to the handle while you're cutting down, so that the blade on the handle hit really tightly against the metal piece it touches on the cutter base. (And using your other hand to hold the mount strip firmly in place on the base.)

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Sorry that my descriptions are not clearer. I was reluctant to even weigh in on this question because it's hard to describe without pics or a video, but I did want to weigh in on how I found a way to do it quite successfully.

I'll be happy to try to answer any follow-up questions here, since I know my descriptions are inadequate.

Your description was clear to me, the only difference in our methods is the brand of mount cutter I used, but it also needed the pressure against the cutter for cleaner cuts, and I used blue masking tape.
I also cut a stamp sized piece of paper in place of a stamp to fit the mount to.

LRPhil, those are good suggestions!

Not quite sure what the issues are here, but each to their own.

I use Showguard mounts, plus some old Harco mounts. I use scissors to trim mounts down, or cut a mount from a strip. Have no personal need for a mount cutter as haven't lost or damaged a stamp or souvenir sheet in 30+ years. I also do not want any kind of glue or masking tape anywhere near my stamps.

In the late 90's and early 2000's, I used mounts so I could identify varieties. One example is Bermuda keyplates where there were many printings. I used a mount significantly taller than the stamp, which left room above the stamp to put a small white stickly label. This saved room in stockbooks and Vario pages since I didn't need to put ID info next to each stamp. It also made stamps a bit less likely to move around on Vario pages due to the added material.

Mostly a good system - except - I simply cannot use the guillotine properly. From day 1, mounts got crushed, folded, creased, or incompletely cut, creating a ton of wasted money and material. Maybe my cutter sucked, but I am pretty sure it was me who sucked at it.

To get clean cuts with the guillotine mount cutters, that plastic or metal bar next to the blade needs to be pressed and held down on the mount strip to keep it from wiggling around. Apparently the instructions still don't tell you to do this(?). If you've ever dealt with the guillotine paper cutters used by schoolteachers, they don't usually have such a bar and you get crooked cuts all the time if not your thumb dragged into the blade. For commercial printers, they use a machine that screws/clamps down a large stack of papers and a guillotine blade slices through the whole stack cleanly.

Yes! What Hy-brasil said!

And I had the best luck when I applied pressure on the handle down- and leftward toward the blade at the same time.

If/when the Hawid glue pen is gone, then an excellent replacement is canopy glue used by plastic model builders used as a clear glue to attach (ta da!) airplane canopies. There is no handy applicator like the pen but you can use a (cheap) fine (00 or 0) artist "sable" paintbrush to apply it while using something like a metal ruler to get that straight glue edge. Both tools can and should be cleaned in soap and water.

Canopy glue is thin and runny and a little goes a long way. It does glue mount material without warping and is flexible enough to stand up to page turning. It won't weld mount pieces together like premade mounts are made but it will hold well.

HY is correct there, once you learn to apply pressure the correct way, it works like a champ.

Philitarium, you are correct in that practice does help. Started slicing on some leftover Showgard mounts for 5 minutes or so and once it clicked, all good. Even the speed of the cut seems to matter; too slow and it wants to tear, too fast and it wants to grab.