Why is Plastazote used throughout the world as the professional's choice for conservation packaging, preservation and display? Because it is high purity polyethylene foam which is consistent, non-staining, acid and ammonia free, water and chemical resistant, has excellent cushioning and holding properties, is available in a choice of colours as well as white, pale grey and black, and also has an excellent aesthetic appeal.
Plastazote has been used to transport, package and store priceless artefacts - 600,000 year old mammoth bones, Egyptian relics of Rameses and other pharaohs, the Three Graces, parts of the Stein loan collection, rare wallpaper collections, Neolithic arrow and axe heads.
Polyformes have been supplying museums and galleries around the world for over 30 years with Plastazote for display mount boards, liners, inserts, packaging, sheets etc.
Polyformes supplies numerous museums with foam products for educational purposes, sometimes in the form of loans cases which can be made to size with bespoke foam inserts to house all sizes and shapes of items, often as finished products such as roman arch formers, channelled sheets and blocks to house slides and frames, and archaeological dustbin inserts. Entomology displays utilise the excellent pinning and re-pinning that Plastazote offers.
Christopher Clarkson, the well known archivist from the Bodleian Library in Oxford, teamed up with Polyformes over 20 years ago to design and develop the Clarkson Book Support System. This design for book supports, which vastly reduces damage to bound materials, now features prominently in reading rooms around the world. The system has been enthusiastically welcomed by librarians, curators and readers in museums, libraries and universities globally.
Fine art comes in many forms - paintings, vases, sculptures - and all of these items need careful packaging and protection for shipping. Depending upon the actual item, the packing materials used can be a mix of softer polyethers and esters such as HLB22, F104, F133 often combined with Plastazote specialist cushioning protection foam. Some pieces can be shipped in well protected and specifically foamed out double or triple wall cartons, others will be shipped out in ply and batten crates with the required shaped foam cushions.
Channelled Plastazote foam walls in crates allow for slotting paintings into when there is a quantity to ship and these fitments are designed to allow for different size artwork within one crate if needs be. Individual crates or flight cases can be made to house specific artwork whether for shipping to a gallery or a private individual.
The materials we use or supply are utilised because they give exceptional packaging quality for valuable products. External packing and internal packing materials are considered in context of specific requirements. Foams and cartons are of the highest quality with regard to their protective performance and in terms of their safe use with expensive or priceless works of art. The Plastazote foam is an inert, highly stable foam which is completely CFC, HCFC, HFC and VOC free. It is renowned for its purity, being used in museums packaging and displays and as the world’s safest archival foam.
