Thanks guys.

Mr Bill, excellent, got it now. Funny enough.. that book is in my car at the moment (seriously) (thinking about going to grad school for photo preservation-esque stuff, but haven't read it yet!)

Jeff, yes I see your point, but my MO is always to achieve high-quality with low-cost. I'm not gonna put the cart before the horse and go buy a mega-cutter, I'm going to cut my teeth on the Dexter. I like the archival corners idea better than dry-mounting for sure. Framing at this point is just too much overhead; I'm gonna see how it goes at first and go from there.

That being said, how do I make a "mat-sandwich" sturdy enough by itself w/o a frame?