The Framers Forum

We take a deposit and give the customer a piece of Perfectmount to stick the jigsaw down to. When it comes in we then stick it under the press to consolidate it before framing it. I have found that most of the jigsaws are not expensive and the customers are usually not looking to spend that much on ...

Some suppliers we have been with for 20 years - we have found the most competitive side of our business has been glass suppliers - we are paying less for glass now than we were in 1988, and the service is as good if not better now than then. Print suppliers will also have no qualms about dropping us...

About 98% of the moulding we use are made from wood. About 5 years ago we had a discount frame shop open directly opposite us. One of the items they sold were a range of sketches of TV characters, bought from Chantry. Just to wind them up, I bought a small amount of artcore from Arqadia which I used...

We have often framed seating plans/photos with wide mounts that the best man has organised everyone attending to sign. We usually use our usual mountboard, but select a light colour with a smooth, none textured surface. We advise that pencil is the best item to sign it with as it will not fade. We t...

Hi, I bought a new Minigraf 44 18 months or so ago after 18 years of using a Cassesse 810 that I finally got fed up of not being bale to get the correct spares for. My framers found it a bit clumsy at first, but after a few weeks of use they became pleased if not happy with their new machine. They f...

If the mirrors are large, make sure you use mirror glass that is thick enough. If you use 2mm thick mirror glass in a large mirror they will bend slightly and give a fun fair distorted mirror effect. I once tried to sell a particularly ugly customer a mirror made out of none reflective glass, but he...

My main annoyance with the BBC is that pillock Dom. If I hear one more customer tell me that Dom says I should ask for discount I will slap them with the Radio Times. It is usually independant shops that he targets to get discounts - the very sector that is under massive commercial pressure from all...

We have only used wedelivertheworld.com a couple of times, both times for high value items - one worth £4,000 and the other a couple of K. The big advantage is that I was able to insure the pictures for the full retail value - you are usually only insured for the cost value, so if it is an irreplaca...

The big problem is that most carriers will not compensate for broken glass. Check the conditions. We use Parcelforce and occasionally Fast Lane at http://www.wedelivertheworld.com. Works of art are also usually listed as exempt from insurance cover, that will not affect mirrors, but the no compensat...

Agree with Prospero - do not spray it. 2 examples why not, both from a several years ago . A customer came in with a pastel portrait of her children that was done on holiday in the far east. It was on paper and a sheet of polythene had been put over the image to "protect" it. Luckily the c...

Temperature is also a cause of canvases relaxing - not just on oil paintings. We had a Doug Hyde canvas delivered on a cold morning in February and it looked terrible - very slack - however, once it had warmed up the canvas tightened and it has looked good ever since. The way to tighten yours has be...

We employ 2 framers. One of them will wear a crop tee shirt no matter how cold it is. The other complains about being cold if it drops below 25 degrees! It is not unusual to go into our workskop in the depths of winter to find the heater on full and the back door wide open! I should charge the heati...

We have always had a regular stream of people walking in/writing in and phoning in asking for work. It always seems that when we have no vacancies we get someone call in who would be ideal, but once we have a vacancy we have a stream of unsuitable candidates ( that was polite wasn't it!) As we have ...

We offer a variety of options from a basic frame with the shirt pinned to mountboard up to box framing. Most customers when shown the options go for the cheapest, which is around the £100 mark depending on moulding chosen. We will not use the cheapest mouldings as the frames tend to be quite big and...

Thanks in advance,

RobinC

And here is photo no 2

Hi, I need to supply some mounts for a local golf club to show photos and names of past captains. The mounts need to be long landscape profile with up to 10 photos in each (20 windows) The corners of each window need to be rounded, not square cut. I will try to add a coupel of images. Can anyone sup...

May has usually been our quietest month every year for 20 years. We put it down to our customers having to pay the balance on their holidays in 8 weeks time taking loads of cash out of the retail market. We usually have at least 1 hot and sunny week in May which drives all the spenders out of the to...

Arqadia free carriage if order is over £100 and placed via their website I think it is £125 if the order is placed by phone. Delivery usually arrives the next day, sometimes the day after. The website suits me fine as i can place my order on a Sunday, find out about out of stocks and get delivery on...

Before our refit, our walls were covered in brushed nylon material, which you can get from Arqadia or Lion. Since the refit we have used polyweave http://www.bbrown.co.uk/Content.asp?ProdCatID=17 Which is textured and holds velcroed chevrons very well and looks a lot better than the brushed nylon ma...