How To Flatten Old Wrinkled Chair Mat

It is difficult to completely eliminate any trace of a wrinkle from a print but a lot can be done to decrease the appearance.

How to flatten old wrinkled chair mat.

The safest way to add moisture to paper or fiber based photographs as compared to modern resin coated photographic papers is to leave it for a few hours in a tightly closed space with a source of humidity. I bought one of those clear hard plastic office chair mats from staples months ago and have tried repeated times to unroll it. That doesn t fix wrinkles in paper it causes them. After the mat has warmed up carefully unroll it and place it on the floor with the bow up studs cleats down adding weight to hold the mat in place if necessary the mat should gradually flatten over a period of a few hours thicker mats could take longer.

This video was made to help my clients flatten their mailed prints without damaging them. It s a really thick hard plastic with those sharp pointy things underneath that sticks into the carpet. Leave the mats and allow the heat of the sun to release the tension of the fibers naturally. This was a 200 chair mat.

That can be problematic because the edges then want to stay curled up instead of laying flat. I expected a luxury experience. Every time i attempt to unroll it it keeps curling back up. Whether from folding or rolling wrinkles in paper prints distract from the visual effect of any piece.

Step 2 place a sheet of plywood over the cardboard and weigh it down with books or bottles of water. I can t imagine a company buying 100 chair mats and having somebody need to heat each one up with a heatgun just to unroll it. I can t get it to lay flat long enough to put it up my chair. Although there are many different types of plastic mats from exercise mats to floor protectors they likely come packaged or are stored in the same way.

Lay the cardboard out on a piece of plywood or a flat solid wood table with the largest convexity or convexities where the cardboard is warped to bulge outward facing up. But you can iron the wrinkled paper. Unroll the mat and repeat the process across the width to remove the creases and to make sure the mat lays flat in the footwell. On a low setting on a flat surface and with a piece of cloth between the iron and the paper you can mist the cloth a little and use the steam from that to help smooth out the paper.

Place the mats outside in direct sunlight if you live in a region where temperatures exceed 75 degrees fahrenheit. Gravity will get the mat to behave though. I think i m going to call them tomorrow. A little heat and patience can go a long way to restoring your favorite work of art.