The Framers Forum

Hi. I’m an American ex-pat, living in the Netherlands. I worked as a framer for a few years in New York. We joined most of our frames by hand with a corner vise and a hand crank drill. The shop prided itself on using archival materials and the precision of the work. We did a lot of jobs for museums as well as for private clients and a little bit of restoration work.

I’m now an artist, and my framing skills are again being put to good use. I’ve been oil gilding and water gilding archer frames for my work. And lately have been fascinated by the 19th century gilt swept frames with compo or plaster corner ornaments.

Searching for and restoring old frames is time consuming and I’m looking into the feasibility of adding ornaments to a plain frame and then gilding and distressing it.

I’m also very interested in the 17th and 18th century Dutch frame styles. There is no lack of interesting styles and techniques to learn about!

I’ve been a “voyeur” in the forum for years, but as I’m hoping to find resources and materials for appliqués, onlays and ornaments it seemed worthwhile to make an account.

So greetings and thanks for letting me join!

Erica

Hello Erica
Welcome to this forum.

I see you describe yourself as 'old school'.
There are still a few of us on here who tend to use the scenic route when it comes to making frames.
We don't have the same time pressures that many of the members here have to contend with and where some will have cut and joined a pre-finished frame in less than 15min. poor sods like us will take 2 or 3 weeks just to make the moulding before spending our 15min joining it up.

If you ever need any advice on compo casting or crafting early wooden profiles such as from the Dutch Golden Age, just post it on here.
It always makes an interesting discussion.

By the way - what's an 'Archer' frame?

An archer frame is a typo. I meant an arched frame. Sorry!

Ah!
So, is an arched frame what we tend to call here, a tabernacle frame?

I adore tabernacle frames. But I’m afraid my frames are a little more plain. They’re simple frames with an arch at the top. Let me see if I can figure out how to add a photo. [img][attachment=1]IMG_3215.jpeg[/attachment][/img][img][attachment=2]IMG_2526.jpeg[/attachment][/img][img][attachment=3]IMG_3210.jpeg[/attachment][/img][img][attachment=0]IMG_3214.jpeg[/attachment][/img]

Did you do that?
Absolutely magnificent. Puts us all to shame.

Can you say how you created the arch top? Was it a router?

I found a lot of unfinished frames at auction. They were from a furniture manufacturer that went out of business. I believe they were intended to be used for mirrors. Looking at the backs they were joined from multiple pieces of straight moulding to rough in the arch. And then likely routed, maybe by having the router locked in position and rotating the frame with a jig? I’ll post pictures of the back of the frames if anyone is interested. I have large ovals, small ovals, shorter and longer arches[img][/img].

I finish them as needed for paintings on panel, with either traditional chalk/rsg gesso, red bole and Dutch leaf or blue bole and silver leaf. I used to cut the panels and shape them by hand, but my boyfriend is a woodworker! and now cuts them in a jiffy on his band saw for me.

As an artist I’m really drawn to unusually shaped frames. I have enough now for some time, but will need to come up with another solution when my current supply runs out.

I did just pick up a second hand swept frame. I’m guessing from the 1960’s or 70’s? It has a heavy handed brownish layer added to antique and distress the frame. I’ve “cleaned” out much of the that brown layer with a mix of ethanol, turpentine, and brush cleaner and scrubbing it in with old hogs hair brushes. I’m re-leafing it with imitation gold leaf to match a painting.

Here are a few progress pics. Unfortunately in reverse chronological order. I’ll work on mastering the quirks of posting images!
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download/file.php?mode=view&id=17809
download/file.php?mode=view&id=17808
download/file.php?mode=view&id=17806
download/file.php?mode=view&id=17806
download/file.php?mode=view&id=17805&am ... 0d6cb31b11

That's a clever use of old frames.
For the swept frame you showed. I'd use a water-neutralising paint stripper.
Let the stripper blister up the finish then clean/neutralise the stripper with methylated spirit instead of water.
That way the meths evaporates off quickly and there is no water to dissolve the underlying gesso.

That’s a fantastic idea!!! Thank you!

Hi and Welcome Old School.

I sometimes re-use Far East import frames by giving them a light sanding and then coating them with shellac.
This makes a base that water-based paints will stick to. I mostly refinish them with an Ivory type finish with a
few powder-gilded highlights which is then muted with a wash of light grey paint. They look very classy.

One drawback - you are stuck with standard sizes but I can buy gesso-only custom size blanks at a higher price.