Hand finished strut backs

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Of framing styles or techniques that rocked your boat, and also of those that didn't
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David McCormack
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Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by David McCormack »

Not your average framer wrote:So thank you very much David for inspiring me!
Mark
You're welcome mate!

Glad to give something back after all the years of taking inspiration from both you and others on this great forum :D

"Strut your stuff"! :ninja: :ninja:
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Steve N
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Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by Steve N »

Mark
Are the back 12mm thick MDF/PLY, :?:
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Not your average framer
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Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Steve,

Yes, 12mm board and 12mm screws are my thinking, but I may still go for 10mm screws in the struts, I'll have a play around first before I decide. I need to charge a decent price for the strut backs to make it worthwhile. I suspect that only a few customers will want to pay the money, but nice things displayed in the shop window should say the right things about the quality I produce. The 12mm MDF and 12mm Plywood versions will be hand finished to look good.

There will have to be a much cheaper option using 6mm unfinished MDF and put together with pop rivets. The inside of the backing board will have counter bored holes to accommodate the head of the rivet. I won't be cutting the board, or the strut to size myself as the local hardware shop has agreed to cut these for me quite reasonably. I will supply the template, that draw around the template and cut the MDF. I Clean up the edges on my bench top belt sander and using a custom made jig, I will drill the holes in the right place and quickly fit it together with the pop rivets.

As always, everything needs to be quick, easy and at a price that makes sense.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Not your average framer
Posts: 11010
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
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Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by Not your average framer »

Things have been on hold a bit since my stroke, but I doing a few this to see what'spossible at the moment and my thinking has come back to the question of hand finished strut backs. A first step in this regard has been checking out what I can do with my sliding mitre saw. The great thing about my sliding mitre saw is that it can make 90 degree cuts up to 14 inches wide and if I don't need any strut backs exeedind ay dimenion about 14 inches, I am all set to go with cutting the pieces of wood for the strut backs just using this saw.

I don't have a brilliant sense of balance for lifting anything large and unweldy, or excessively heavy since my stroke, but my local hardware shop offers cut to size pieces of MDF, or plywood. Some I'm petty much all set to go. As the angle of the cut is easily set using the angle adjustment on the saw, relative to the fence, It will even accurately cut the sloped sides for the strut, including adding an atractive chamferred edged as chosen by David. I am thinking at this stage, that the sliding mitre saw may substanially reduce the level of time required to produce such strut backs as I am likely to need.

My thanks to David for the original inspiration and an great example of what is possible. I doubt if I would be doing this without be inspired by his orginal thread.

Nice one David.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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David McCormack
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Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by David McCormack »

Thank you Mark :D

Really pleased to think I've inspired you to make hand finished strut backs, that's very cool 8)

Look forward to seeing the finished results.
"You know, there's a right and wrong way to do everything!"
Oliver Hardy.
https://www.instagram.com/davidaustinmccormack/
Not your average framer
Posts: 11010
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Hand finished strut backs

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm a bit slow getting my act together at the momoment. The outside of my shop has finally finished being painted. Now it's time to start getting the inside of the shop fitted out and properly organised. My current lap top is barely working and has a damaged screen, plus I currently need to find my digital camera and see if that still works, but at least I fell that somethings are starting to happen. Obtaining wood and other materials is currently very difficult so I am having to be quite inventive with reusing material which were used for shop fittings in my old shop premises. I've no idea what it's going to look like. The bench tops are mainly going to be made from pieces of slat wall board. Unfortunately the slat wall board pieces are not big enough to made whole bench tops, so the will need to be made up from pieces fitted together and the joins reinforced from below.

Hopefully, I will be busy clearing space and moving glass stock sometime today. I also doing a bit of teaching our lady friend who we've been paying to paint the out side on the shop some of my hand finishing finishes. So far she has been doing rather well, I only have to show once and then then she has a go at it, the results are amazing. We are planning on producing some suitably classy looking stuff which she will sell on ebay. Currently, I am looking at ebay and thinking that we need to have some very special items to interest the buyers and get a really worthwhile price. I am wondering how well we will do on ebay. I am also looking to produce some more items to display in the shop windows. I need to convert several boxes full of small scraps in to frames and I am expecting to need to sell small frames as match frames in sets, I've got an abondance of suitable match scraps suitable for doing this.

I'm also planning on making some very rustic looking mirrors from heavily weathered wood from the remains of the back door to our side passage way along side the shop. It very naturally heavily furrowed by long term exposure to who knows how many years of extremes of the prevalling weather, It should look amazing. At least that's the plan. I'm expecting at least some of these to sell on ebay, but I will try some in the shop windows as well. I'm not going out of the town to purchase thing that I need right now, because the police has just fined one couple £400 for travelling a mere 6 miles from where they live. I thought that they were lifting resrictions, but if anything they are making it worse at the moment. The rules currently seem very vague and are being interpreted in fairly extreme ways, so progress on getting the shop ready may be affected as a result.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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