If you carefully read and follow these instructions you should have no difficulty.

If you are an individual who does not believe in taking time to read and follow instructions, "Good luck, and may God have mercy on your soul."

This assignment provides:
an introduction to drymount and spray mount as useful adhesives for the graphic designer. It also provides experience in precision cutting with the x-acto knife. (The #16 blade is recommended.) The creative selection of the photograph, as well as the selection and placement of the word, is secondary to the execution of the drymounting procedure and the cutting, plus adhesion, of the type.

Note on board size:
Mount board standard full sheet size is 32" x 40". Cut in half to 32" x 20". Cut in half again to 16" x 20", cut in half again to 10" x 16".

Illustration board standard full sheet size is 30" x 40". Cut in half to 30" x 20". Cut in half again to 15" x 20", cut in half again to 10" x 15". You may keep the 16" or 15" dimension until finished which allows area for tape and measurements. You can trim it to 13" when completed.

Step 1: The drymount procedure.
Turn on the drymount press (it takes 5 to 10 minutes to reach the proper temperature of 180 degrees). The green light indicates that it is heating. Turn on the tacking iron.
When possible, it is much better to trim image and drymount tissue together after they are tacked to the board. This insures very accurate placement and precision of cut edges.

If there is a possibility of excess moisture in your image, or board, it may be a good idea to place them in the mount press to dry them before use. Always use a cover sheet to protect surfaces from the platen of the hot press.

Tacking the image to the illustration board.
Tape board to drawing table surface.
Place drymount tissue between image and board. Position accurately to insure desired alignment. 

Place a clean cover sheet over image to protect it.
Briefly touch the tacking iron to the heel of your palm to see if it is hot enough. The tacking iron should be hot enough that you cannot hold it to your palm without discomfort. A medium setting usually accomplishes this.

Press flat side of tacking iron to center of image and hold for approximately 10 seconds. Remove tacking iron and lift corner of image to make certain that it is firmly tacked to the board. If it is not attached, you must repeat the procedure. It must be firmly attached to the board or it could move out of place.

Trimming the image and tissue.
To protect the illustration board from being cut by your knife. Slip a piece of poster board under the edge of the drymount tissue and image you are about to trim. 

Use ruler, T-square, and triangle to insure accurate alignment to edge of board as you cut through the image and tissue. Use a sharp blade. Don't try to cut through both pieces with the first cut. A series of light cuts will provide accuracy without wrinkling the edges of image or tissue. When the excess image and tissue are removed, repeat for each edge. 

Mounting procedure.
Place the illustration board, with cover sheet over the tacked and trimmed image, in the drymount press and close it. Press for 45 seconds. Remove the board from the press and see if image is uniformly mounted.

If air bubbles appear, repeat the mounting procedure.

. . .

Step 2: The Typography.
Determine a word to use with your layout. You may assemble your word from magazine sources, type specimen sheets, or computer typesetting. Arrange the letters with the desired spacing and size. Use copying machine if available.

Trace the word onto tracing paper. Place the tracing paper, image side down, against a piece of enamel paper. Using white enamel paper will make your word appear as reverse type on the photograph, but any opaque paper providing clean cuts will work. 

Lay the tracing, face down, on the enamel paper. Burnish the word onto the enamel paper. The word should read backward because you will cut it out from the back on the light table. Cutting from the back on a glass surface will produce the finest cut possible. Also the pencil guidelines will not show because they are on the back. Redraw the type edges with T-square and triangle if necessary. 

Prepare two strips of masking tape by removing almost all of the stickiness. 

You may press against your palms, blackboard, or any surface that will make the tape less sticky.

It is very, very important that the tape 
provide only minimal adhesion. 

If it is too sticky, it will not release from your letters.

Set the tapes aside for future use.

Use a sharp blade to cut out the letters.
The letters must be completely released from the background paper. Interior spaces such as inside of "O" or "A" must also be completely released. 

Keep the background intact. Keep the letters and interior pieces in place in the background. 

The background is essential to act as a mask when spraying the adhesive.

The background sheet protects the tape. If you sprayed the letters without the background, "spray mount" would be on the tape, then on your layout, what a mess.

Place one strip of non-sticky tape over the cutout letters and background to hold them in place. Turn the sheet over. You are now looking at the front surface of the word. 
Place the second strip of non-sticky tape over the cutout letters and background to hold them in place. You should leave the bottom edge of the letters exposed. This will allow alignment with a T-square. You may now remove the tape from the backside. The tape on the back was only necessary to allow the sheet to be turned over.

Now you are ready to spray adhesive onto the back of your letters. Before you spray the letters, determine where you will place them on your layout. You may wish to tape your board to a table surface and place a T-square to position the bottom edge of your type. Have a x-acto knife handy to pluck interiors out of letters after spraying.

Spray the back of your word. This is not lawn furniture. Do not over spray. 

Peel the tape, with your word attached, from the background. Use x-acto to assist release and to remove interior spaces.

Align word onto layout and press. Carefully remove tape from front surface of word. Use x-acto to assist release if necessary. After tape is removed, press letters firmly to surface of layout. Use a cover sheet to protect the surfaces.