Basic hand finishing

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girlfromkent
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Basic hand finishing

Post by girlfromkent »

Hello All

I have not done any hand finishing before but would like to start.

I am finding the basic ready finished black and white (both wood grain & smooth) mouldings a bit disappointing. My workshop is below a gallery and I will soon be providing frames for exhibiting artists so as well as having nicer (closed?) corners I would like to be able to offer something that will cope with a bit more handling than usual. They might be used more than once, so something I can easily touch up would be ideal.

My question is - what would you suggest as a basic recipe for black / white hand finished frames?
I'm thinking ash for the wood - would anyone argue different?

Also I like to avoid animal products so would welcome any comments on acrylic gesso - can it be swapped in for regular gesso?

Thanks
Megan
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Justintime »

Polished Ash and Oak are a staple for me, but joining issues meant that I soon invested in a Hoffmann router.
If you're hand painting, I can recommend "One Stroke" brushes, Daler rowney red handles are very good and I have just been trialing their white handle "Graduate One Stroke" brushes, much cheaper and they do they job.
I had no idea that there were animal products in acrylic gesso. Hand painted finishes are mostly pretty delicate and putting an acrylic sealer on top like Polyvine dead flat matt varnish which prevents fingerprint damage to the paint means that touching up is a two part process too.
Proper Gesso is time consuming and very fragile.
I guess you'll have to find an alternative to Shellac/Spirit Sanding Sealer as well..
Ash and Oak will stain well and will give you an interesting grain texture when painted but are much harder to join. Why not look at Tulip and Obeche woods for hand painting, easy to cut and join, Tulip can give a really smooth finish, Obeche/Ramin etc have a grain and the resin can be annoying but easy enough.
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Megan,

Don't be too overawed by what you see in photos on the forum, from some of our forum members. Hand finishing allows for a degree of variation between different framers and their hand finishing. You will also develop in various ways as you progress. Each of us with have a measure of individuality which will show in how you do things. We are not only not all the same, but why should we all produce things which are exactly the same?.

You have already mentioned ash and ash is a popular wood for hand finishing, so I perhaps a good place to start. It tends to show the wood grain through the painted surface and you have plenty of choice regarding which sort of paint to use. I mostly use water based paints and this include chalky emulsion paint and acrylic paints. In time, you will find what works best for you. Don't worry too much about what everyone else is using. When you find what is best for you, you won't need anyone to tell you, you will know that for youself.

Also, different people will have their own preference for brushes. There is no right, or wrong choice of brushes, use what works best for you and it will be fine. Every framer produces some bits of scrap, so practice with a few scraps until you feel ready to do it for real. Lots of us have just picked it up as we have gone along and it seems to work well enough for most of us.
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by vintage frames »

Acrylic gesso is fine if you just want to ' fill the grain '. Only problem is that it's a hard chore to sand to a smooth finish - compared to traditional gesso made with rabbit skin glue. And this indeed is an animal by-product, same as leather shoes and belts. But then you have acrylic gesso which is a by-product of the chemical plastics industry! So there's an interesting choice.
If you are looking for a black hand-finished frame - I'd keep it simple - flat obeche moulding, 'couple coats of gesso, sand smooth, paint black!
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girlfromkent
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by girlfromkent »

Thanks all.

Dermot - what about gesso bole? Or am I getting ahead of myself
Any black paint? I have some farrow and ball - is that ok or is acrylic paint or something else better?
Should I use black acrylic gesso for black frames? Probably a stupid question :giggle:

Yes I'm currently struggling with the animal ingredients versus plastic evil question. If anyone knows of an alternative that doesn't contain either I'd be very interested to hear thoughts. Or could I use paint primer instead of gesso?
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Justintime »

I use farrow and ball all the time, with and without an undercoat.
A quick job is students black acrylic gesso, highly pigmented jet black, couple of quick coats job done. Eco chalk paints too, but id recommend the acrylic sealer/varnish as a final coat otherwise finger marks while hanging etc will spoil the paint finish.
If youve ever done some decorating, its about preparation. Cut, join, fill sand, wipe clean, undercoat, top coats, seal. Sand after undercoat if the grain raises. Or wing it!! I have often slapped on black gesso onto oak and ash, its quick easy and looks awesome!
Put some points from a point gun into at least two sides of the base of the frame. It'll keep it off the bench while youre painting it.
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Justintime »

Im still confused by this idea that acrylic gesso needs sanding and is difficult Dermot.
The standard acrylic gesso available from art shop sites is just the same as an acrylic paint in my experience. Brush it on, no need to sand. I have it in white grey and black, student or professional grades. I think its what artists use to coat a canvas before painting.
I have to disagree with Mark, I love to hear exactly what materials other framers use, so that I can try them. Sure, there's no right way, but it speeds up the learning process. Buy the best you can afford, there's a slim difference between student, graduate and professional, but we know where we want to be eventually..
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by GeoSpectrum »

The quickest way I have found is use a thick body chalk paint ( or add whiting to white paint) the same colour as the top coat. Paint it on good and thick, let it dry sand it off and apply the top coat. Works a treat.
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Not your average framer »

I don't use any undercoat as I don't sand down the paint either. Depending on the type of wood I tend to make the first coat of paint, just a thin coat and dry it with a heat gun to avoid raising the grain. It takes moisture and time to raise the grain, so I dry the paint quickly with the hot air gun, so that there is not much time to raise the grain, but there can be times, when I want to raise the grain as part of the finish and I do this with water and left it soak in and then apply heat with the heat gun and the water which has soaked into the cells in the wood turns to staem inside these cell and puffs them up raising the grain. You can do this more than once if you need to.

I use pine quite often as some pine mouldings can be very economical and many of the easiest mouldings for making up stacked moulding combination are pine. Very often pine is not the easiest wood to hand finish and takes a bit of practice before you get the nack. I don't much like pine mouldings which have lots of knots and as some mouldings use different sources of pine, I like to buy the pine mouldings which are virtually knot free and the small number of knots, which I encouter every now add then, I cut around and the knots go into the waste bin. Washed and waxed, or washed and lightly varnished pine is quite useful for ready made frames. Knot free pine can be quite popular with customers for ready made frames.

Making ready made frames for local artists is not always easy. Locally artists don't usually want to spend much money and they are usually looking for a nice sized moulding profile. Seeing that rural Devon was quite severely hit by the credit crunch and has not been the same since, it is not quite the same market as it once was, but I still manage to sell some frames to local artists. A lot of them tend to be looking for frames to fit cheap canvases, which can be a bit of a problem as cheap canvases are often not completely square and not always very accurate when I comes to the specified sizes, but they often want reasonably sized frames, so the money is not always so bad. I generally make such frames using cheap'ish, but not too expensive obeche mouldings, with a decent rebate width and I paint these with antique white chalky emulsion, which I wax when dry.

I often mix chalky emulsion with a nice thick acrylic paint, because the chalky emulsion helps to produce a nice finish and ease of application. Chalky emulsion often looks great when it has been waxed. Artists rarely pay the extra for stacked moulding frames, or extra for anything. For some strange reason, the often try to haggle with you on price, where as the don't have that option with Ikea, or the range. I don't do discounts, once you start doing that everyone will want a discount, but I do have some bargain frames made out of off cuts, they are nothing special and priced to sell, but they are a fixed price, so it's take it or leave it. Lots of stuff in my shop is hand finished, but the cheap stuff has to be a quick and easy one hit finish. I make most frames out of bare wood, and this means that I'm not having to find off cuts with matching colours.

Stacked moulding frames also work for me, when I'm using up off cuts, because I can vary the combination of mouldings so that I don't end up with a boring looking window of stuff that all looks the same. I don't have as many different mouldings as some might imagine, but I can ring the changes on what I have to make it look like I have a much bigger range than the total number of bare wood mouldings in stock. I typically buy bare wood moulldngs as quatities of 100, or 200 feet at a time, using up off cuts is quite a big deal for me, if the morso is already set up for the moulding I have already been using and what is left is not enough to be worth putting back in the rack, I made a quick ready made frame and put it into the odds and ends box, it only gets finished off when I am sitting around with not much to do.

I have shelves and shelves full of different pots of paint, varnish, wood stain and waxes. This is where the variety comes from! I also have an extensive collection of books to give me ideas on days when I run out of ideas. Sales don't usually come from doing too many things, which are all the same, variety is what my sales volume is partly about. Obviously it's also about quality, but variety keeps people interested. I'm in a small rural town and I hope people don't get the impression, that I'm so amazingly run off my feet with a never ending queue of customers trailing out of the door. I'm just an older framer, doing what it takes to generate a workable level of business to keep things going.

I do lots of old school type of stuff, because it makes me and my shop very different and being different is particually good for business, when you are based in a quiet little town which is well of the beaten track. I have stacks of old discontinued mouldings which I bought cheap, from shops that were closing down, bargain bundles and stock clearances and have learned how to use these old out of fashion mouldings in new and interesting ways that bring them back up to date. Presentation is everything and people like to buy things that look really special and are not the boring same things, which you see everywhere else and for the most part hand finishing is a very big part of it.
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prospero
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by prospero »

You don't need to agonise too much about it. You can use what ever works for you.

There are only two basic criteria:

It looks right. :D

It doesn't rub off. 8)

There aren't any hard-and-fast rules, except where it comes to water-gilding. That does involve animal products.

Experimentation is to best way to learn. Don't get the idea that its all very complicated. Most of the job is sanding. :lol:
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by vintage frames »

There - Prospero manages to sum up the whole debate in just a few short sentences. What I could add and to echo Justin's point, preparation is everything. If it's a basic flat obeche frame, make sure to sand the mitres perfectly flat and give the outer corners a wipe with the sandpaper, so as to blunt the corners. The frame will look less 'agressive'.
Now you can paint on whatever paint you like. Farrow and Ball is good, as are many others. It's for you to judge if that is the finish you're going to be happy with. You only need a gesso base if you want a perfectly smooth finish and with no trace of a mitre join. Don't waste your money on gesso/bole concoctions. Even a dollop of smooth surface Poltfilla, thumb-ed over the mitres will do the trick.
If you have concerns later about using animal products, then you might have to also accept that all moderns paints, primers, varnishes and gessos are artificial chemicals derived from the oil and plastics industry. All are non-biodegradable and in the long term, harmful to the enviroment.
Traditional finishes, including glues and binders derived from animal products, are natural products and have been used for centuries by artists and craftsmen. But you don't have to worry about any of that - unless you want to show an interest in gilding and other fine finishes. Then we can start talking . .
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Not your average framer »

I like to fil the mitres with a gap filling adhesive like hard as nails, or instant nails. Adhesives like these a much harder than many fillers and set extremely rapidly. being so hard once they are set and they sand down, really nicely with minimum fuss. I find it very natural to experiment a little and go with you own instincts, even so far as wanting to do your own thing and maybe even to develop your own styles a bit. Originally, framers did not have the chance to learn as much from forums like we have now, but the had to pick a lot of it up as they went along. By all means copy other framers ideas that you want to, but don't be afraid to do your own thing when you want to and even develop your own ideas and finishes which can often be something special to yourselves.

As these difficult times continue and maybe some materials become less easy to obtain, many of us will be needing to improvise as we continue and learning to use our own individual creative instincts may well be part of that, so why not allow yourselves to do a bit of these as you go on. I don't think that everything is going to be particularly easy as the current crisis continues, but harnessing our own creativity could be the key to overcoming the hard times ahead. Sometimes, I hear people referring to many of us older framers who've been doing this stuff a while, as guru's. It's not especially true, we are just the ones who have found ourselves doing something a little bit different. In time many of you hopefully will become the next generation of hand finishing frames and hopefully pass on what you have learnt as well and some of what you have learnt will be things that you discovered for yourselves.

Sooner, or later we all rise to the challenges which come our way and become so gifted at as many things. Getting started is the most daunting bit and then you start to develop in so many ways. It's time to go for it guys and there's plenty of other forum members whose brains you can pick as you go along the way. Enjoy the journey guys!
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by prospero »

Stuff I use.....

Fine surface filler. I wet an old brush and dip it in the filler. Swirl it about and scrub it into the raw frame.
The consistency is all: Too thick and it's hard work, too thin and it doesn't do the job. As it dries, wipe it over
with a J-Cloth. If yo take your time wiping over it will minimise the sanding. This is to fill any pores in the grain.
At the same time it will fill any gaps and blend the mitres. You can omit this stage and paint straight on the wood,
but this provides a good base for smooth paint finishes.

Ripple Paint. This is commonly used by decorators as a basecoat as it is thick and is designed to fill minor cracks.
You can thin it slightly, but you can use it full strength and as it will 'hold' brushmarks you can create some nice
textures. Only comes in White, but you can tint it with acrylic paint. Two coats sanded down makes a nice smooth
base. Very like Gesso, but not as hard as acrylic gesso. I use Black acrylic gesso sometimes for dark finishes.
Adding powder pigments (or school Poster paint) will thicken it up and you can apply it with a pallete knife to make
deep textures like a rough-plastered wall. Don't try and make it too thick though.

Acrylic Paint. I use artist quality paint almost exclusively. It is tough when dry and can be polished to a nice satin finish.
Using wax you can get more of a shine.

Cartridge Glue. Non-solvented. I get boxes of 12 from Screwfix. Sets hard. Takes paint. Not messy. Handy for blending
stacked frames. It acts as a glue, but also fill quite large gaps.

Brushes. You don't really need expensive sable brushes. I use Harris 'Easy-Clean' synthetic brushes mainly. I also keep a
good stock of natural hair disposable brushes for dragging and stippling. Cheaper the better. I use a few smaller brushes
of better quality for finer work. Rinse them and keep them in water. Don't let then dry.

Sandpaper. 80 and 120 grit are the ones I use mostly. I buy a big roll of each. Also use foam sanding pads which you can
buy sometimes as 'seconds' off EBay.

Where a touch of gold is called for I use Bronze Powder (mainly 2.5 colour) Big tub is about £60 but goes a long way. This is
bound in a varnish and mixed with a bit of White Spirit. You can get some nice effects with this. You'll never get it a shiny as
gold leaf, but that's another story......

Other things..... Yellow dusters. Dishcloths. Kitchen paper. Plastic tubs for mixing quantities of paint.

A good workshop vacuum is an asset. :P


That's the main kit. :clap:
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by Not your average framer »

Prosero's list is good and at various times,I've tried most of those items, but with a few variations according to whats easily available. Left over dregs of chalky emulsion in colours that I don't have much use for and is becoming a bit thick in the bottom of the pot, becomes the base coat which can be sanded a bit to fill less than perfect wood grain. I use old jeans than have been torn up, old towels and micro fibre cleaning cloth from the supermarkets and sometimes kitchen paper towel rolls.

If any thing does not need sanding, then I rarely bother. I do have a bench top belt sander, which I sometimes use with a light touch tp take the edges of of sharp corners and edges, if the edges and corners need it. paint smooths down with almost no effort using a mixture of meths and hardly any cellulose solvent, a quick blow with a hot air gun to dry the solvent and stop any stickiness remaining in the paint and it ready to safely handle again. Lots of my finishes are finished with a brushed on coat of wax, which smooths down and hardens with a quick blow from the heat gun.

For me hand finishing is not just for expensive frames, but there are simple, cheap, quick and easy finishes for ready made frames too. but the cost of the finish and time taken to do it are most definitely a critical consideration, if these frame are going to be worth doing to make money. I will at times hand finish corners on some frames to make a frame made with a cheap moulding look a bit better and be worth a more sensible and worthwhile price.
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girlfromkent
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Re: Basic hand finishing

Post by girlfromkent »

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply so comprehensively and usefully.

Righto, now for some experimentation and a lot of mess...

Oh and Dermot I definitely am interested in gilding, and even moreso in ebonised dutch style finishes so I'm sure I'll be bothering you further soon :D
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