Thank you for showing how to find mush the edges. You’re the first person to show it. I didn’t don’t want to leave the sides exposed, but didn’t know if gesso was adequate to finish the edges.

With sanding you get a lot of the grit off the paper in the air. All you need is a scraper, or a cutting tool like a plane set fine and the edges are smoothed in a stroke.

You can easily score and break the panels yourself. One of the advantages or the material is that it does not require sawing in manufacturing small panels. Unless they are circles, etc...

Thank you. If you use lead primer how much time is needed between coats to dry? Thank you again for your demonstration and time!

Thanks, very helpful

Good point about copper. However, modern day wood products would be ply, or fiberboard, for wood. The Mona Lisa was painted on wood, and it if it was a plain wood panel, there would be the potential of a lot of expansion and contraction. Proper preparation of the materials would reduce that, but today, you can reduce it to virtually nothing, with coatings and ply materials.

Will the Golden gesso stick to aluminum well?? I find it hard to believe that it will have a long life.

Why would you not paint on the aluminum exposed side vs the one with the polyester film? It makes no sense to me. The archival value of the polyester side would probably gas out over time. I will err on painting on the exposed aluminum side.

I like ACM panels, but I don't worry about longevity of my product. If I did, I would worry a little about the plastic core, the plastic surface, and the plastic primer. The aluminum itself doesn't seem to have much of a role. Plastics are getting a lot better, but they don't have a great reputation for longevity, with problems showing up in stuff like bindings of guitars, films or most early fiberglass boats, with major environmental and property impacts. Another problem is the panels weigh a lot. Which increases adverse energetic effects during transportation, stuff like vibration, or impacts.

Can I also do acrylic painting over acp using same technique

Hola Ariel, soy Manuel de Chile y también pinto. He buscado un soporte ideal ya que he tenido problemas con el MDF que hay aquí, ya que pequeñas fibras con el pasar de los meses, terminan saliendo por sobre la base pictórica realizada dañando la obra. Como trabajaba con soporte sólido en pequeños formatos, pensaba pasar a tela de lino, pero es muy costoso. Me encontré con esta opción, ¿Cómo te ha resultado con el pasar de los meses? Algunos dicen que es mejor aplicar GAC de 200 para luego colocar el Gesso acrílico Golden, previo lijado. Me ha costado encontrar planchas de aluminio compuesto y que me las den dimensionadas, pero seguiré buscando. Donde indicas más abajo, Polymerlands, están agotadas hasta enero del 2022. Tengo una última consulta ¿Afecta el color del soporte de aluminio compuesto? ya que en Polymerland ofrecen blanco y silver ¿afectará si llegara a comprar blanco en enero? Algunos vienen en más colores. Saludos y gracias.

Ariel en dónde compras los paneles en Santiago ? Súper bueno el tutorial.

It isn't more rigid that wood. It is more rigid for thickness, but not more rigid for weight. When we talk about rigidity, it is normally in reference to some other characteristic, such as weight, or thickness. The knock on Al is that it is heavy. Wood composite is the lightest material relative to stiffness, other than advanced composites like carbon, and advanced carbon structures. There are wooden racing boats, that still take down carbon composites in certain conditions even though they are 50 years old and cost a 1/10 of what carbon composites do, and aluminum is not even in consideration. Also, you are probably comparing some not composite structure in wood, like masonite, plywood, etc... To the aluminum composite. An all wood composite like ply skins over balsa core is a whole other universe.

Aluminum is a softer metal, drop it on a corner, and see how much damage it takes, even from a low height, it will deform the corner substantially.

composite was only invented 15 odd years ago.