From: Tom Dixon <[log in to unmask]> Subject: Security clips for paintings on display From: Miles BINGHAM <[log in to unmask]> Subject: security clips for paintings I am looking for information on security clips that can be used to hold paintings to gallery walls, and as such, act as a theft deterrant. If anyone knows where i could find such a thing, could you please let me know? Thanks Miles 10 February Miles We use small plates called "fish clips" (because they look rather like fish tails) or mirror plates. They are brass plated steel, roughly triangular shape and with one hole in each corner. A wood block of the proper thickness is attached to the bottom of the frame to bring the surface of the plate, which is attached to this block, flush with the wall. Two screws hold the plate to the block and one hold is left protruding from beneath the bottom member of the frame. A screw is then used to attach the plate to the wall. Two "D" ring hangers are holding the frame on the wall and the security plate simply prevents the frame from being lifted up and off the main hangers. Our hanging walls are medium density fiber board (MDF), and we use self drilling, self tapping screws on the security plates. These can be of special head design (such as the Bulls Eye type or a raft of other patterns which its unlikely a museum visitor will be carrying a tool to undo) or you can fill the slot with 5 minute epoxy and paint it over in which case the person has no idea what pattern you used. You just have to remember when you go to take it down. We've used this system for about 10 years on small items, especially prints, drawing and photos and are happy with it. We buy the plates from a local mirror shop. If you have trouble getting them, let me know and I will track down the manufacturer- but call a couple mirror shops and asked for mirror plates or fish clips and they will probably know what you want. We also used these during our controversial exhibition of Andre Serrano when we had two vandalisms. The first day, a man came in and ripped the 4x6' photo off the wall- he didn't mind getting caught and was therefore pretty difficult to stop. The leverage of the frame itself created sufficient force to simply pull the screws out of the walls. On the second day, I used longer screws and bolstered the system up- so the next set of vandals didn't worry about the security clips, they just smashed the work with a hammer. No system is fool proof. Thomas Dixon Chief Conservator National Gallery of Victoria Melbourne Australia ________________________ -------------------------------------------- Museum Security Network http://museum-security.org/ http://www.xs4all.nl/~securma/ Send a 'set digest' message to: [log in to unmask] if you prefer receiving MSN messages as a weekly digest. mailinglist archive: http://museum-security.org/MSN-archive.exe ---------------------------------------------------