I mount linen as well as a finer weave canvas on Ampersand panels. For quick studies out door I use Elmer’s glue to attach to panel and place heavy objects like books until dry, normally less than 8 hours. For larger works I still use Ampersand panels but use BVA 371 glue as it is conservative safe and artwork is easily removed if necessary for reattaching to other supports.
Hoe this helps.

By the way even if I have already used a panel I still can sand the image off and use that panel again so yes you can mount to gesso’d boards already used.

What Contumacious said, only to add …

Seal the back of a hardboard panel first using gloss medium. Then immediately seal the front, then the edges. I support the wet back side on empty peanut butter jars while coating the front. For panels 11X14 or smaller a jar at each corner is okay. 16X20 and up you may want to support the center also. If you started with a flat panel you will end up with a flat panel working this way and the possibility of warping is much reduced.

I use gloss gel medium as adhesive – doesn’t dry too fast and I think there’s less moisture.

I glue my canvas to luan or hardboard panels with heavy bodies acrylic gloss medium. I use enough medium so that some of it squeezes out from the edges when I use a rubber roller on it. I cover the piece with wax paper so it doesn’t stick to whatever I weight it down with (Books, plywood, etc.). I dry it overnight, trim off any excess and it’s ready to use. I’ve never had one De-laminate.

…. You still might want to add a moisture proof seal on top of the gesso since most gesso is highly water absorbent…

Gesso is highly water-absorbent? I have never found this to be the case. SInce gesso is water soluble – if it were highly water absorbent, it would never dry.

Thanks for all the great info. I bought some unprimed linen and attached the linen to my panels using Lineco Neutral PH PVA, which worked very well.

Now, I’m wondering if I should use the same PVA to size the attached linen before priming with Gamblin Oil Primer or if I can go straight to applying Gesso.

Once more, thanks in advance for any advice.

You should at least size the linen BEFORE you adhere it to the panel, particularly with water based sizes and grounds. Most people size and prime before. Not doing this can cause your panels to warp when the size and primer are applied. You might get away with it for smaller panels, but it is best not to go that route regardless. How big is the panel you are working on now?

Oil based primers / grounds require a size between the fabric and the oil ground so that the oils won’t cause rotting of the fabric. You can use PVA as a size, acrylic mediums, Rabbit Skin Glue, Acrylic Gesso etc. It needs to be thick enough and evenly applied so as to prevent the oils from reaching the fabric fibers. Follow the instructions given for the product you choose.

To avoid confusion here are the commonly used definitions of the terms we are using here. Many are interchangeable terms. The text in parenthesis was added by me. https://www.rexart.com/glossary.html

[*]Size: Material applied to a surface as a penetrating sealer, to alter or lessen its absorbency and isolate it from subsequent coatings. (Some acrylic gessos can be used as a size AND a ground)
[*]Primer: Coating material, usually white, applied to a support to prepare it for painting. (Primer can mean several different things which makes it confusing. Sizing materials are often referred to as primers, gessos and grounds are also called primers by some.)
[*]Ground: Coating material, usually white, applied to a support to make it ready for painting. (Gesso is a ground but not all grounds are gesso)
[*]Gesso: A white (or tinted) ground material for preparing rigid supports for painting. made of a mixture of chalk (or other similar materials), white pigment, and glue (binder). Same name applied to acrylic bound chalk and pigment used on flexible supports as well as rigid. (The key ingredient that makes a ground what we commonly refer to as “gesso” is the chalk / marble dust / calcium carbonate. Oil GROUNDS do not usually have any of that in them and are thus significantly less absorbent.)

Thanks for the great tip!!

Re dry-mounting canvas to a substrate: I talked to the people at Lineco and their technicians said that their “Lineco Neutral PH Adhesive” can be applied, allowed to dry, and then reactivated with a low-heat iron. I like this approach, as it avoids the stress of possible air bubbles showing up when I’ve wet-glued canvas to a substrate. The Lineco Neutral PH Adhesive works like Lamin-All, but it’s cheaper.

You should at least size the linen BEFORE you adhere it to the panel, particularly with water based sizes and grounds. Most people size and prime before. Not doing this can cause your panels to warp when the size and primer are applied. You might get away with it for smaller panels, but it is best not to go that route regardless. How big is the panel you are working on now?

From what I understand acrylic gesso is similar to that DIY recipe of PVA glue + chalk and it sizes and primes the canvas at the same time?

So you shouldn’t need to size canvas as well, unless you’re using oil grounds etc.

I have seen people just use gesso to attach the canvas to a board, makes sense because the gesso is a kind of glue also, as it has to bond securely to the surface to help ‘seal’ it (but also the chalk allows a layer to bond paint to).

I’m guessing as long as you fix/tape the edges of the canvas tight it shouldn’t come off. Maybe for large boards I would also maybe glue, but for the 14×18″ ones I’m planning I won’t. Lineco is hyper expensive here, I was thinking of doing DIY gesso but it’s an American import so of course all the tutorials mention it as ‘cheap’ but the rest of the world has to either pay through the nose or find something else. Can’t find any other archival PVA that isn’t imported though or in very small expensive bottles.