Cutting compound mitres to make coved frames.

[Not your average framer]

So how do you work out the angle at the mitre joints on a covered frame. I've thinking about this for while and it's not so easy, but a coved moulding section as the middle element of a stacked moulding frame, could produced something very interesting.

Any ideas?

Thanks.

[prospero]

Not sure I totally understand what you're trying to do Mark.

[Not your average framer]

I am thinking about cutting like a cove mount out of wood to fit into the middle section of a stacked moulding, so that there will be fitted a single moulding to the outside of this cove moulding and a single moulding to the inside of the cove moulding. I could make something out of a larger piece of wood, with a flat surface at the back and not need to bother about calculating the other angle at each mitre, because it would be 90 degrees in the vertical plane and 45 degrees in the horizontal plane.

However if I can do it with a thinner piece of wood and have both the front surface and the rear surface at the same angle, I can save adding unnecessary weight to the completed frame. Maybe there might be a small cost saving too. I do have a possible alternative way of doing this , but making a cutting jig which will present the wood in a sloping position in the band saw mitre sled, but this might complicate how I determine the stop positions for cutting to the correct moulding length.

Larger profile sloping frame profiles can be really popular, but the material cost can be quite considerable on larger frames, if you don't take measures to keep it under control. As you no doubt can understand as the customer price increases, price resistance becomes a factor and my own profit margin may get squeezed as a result. Also if I can mahe the middle and outer sections out of suitably proportioned strip wood, only the centre section needs to be a rebated moulding and off the shelf strip wood is really cheap, so down comes the cost.

I can recut the sides of the strip wood middle section to bring them back to a proper angle for gluing to the other sections very simply by tilting the table on my band saw. I've been doing some rough metal arithmatic and the material cost saving is likely to be quite substantial, also the likely assembly time saving also should be quite substantial. I have seen frames like this used for framing art in up market galleries and such frames appear to be really popular, so I figure that this might be a good idea to pursue.

As a production and assembly technique, this should be easy for batch production and thereby enabling some helpful extra savings at the same time. I think that this idea could tick a lot of the right boxes at various levels. At might even be worth trying as ready made frames for local artists as well.

[Not your average framer]

I have a useful quantity of tongue and grooved planks, salvaged from an old back door, which can be cut down and run through a planer to make some frames like this. What's not to like about the idea! What was the name of that song "Money for nothing". More than half of my town's charity shops have closed down, so it not so easy for local artists to find a good supply of decent frames. I'm not too interested in the cheap as chips end of the market, but maybe some of these artist will pay more for something a bit special, especially if it adds value and sale-ability to their work.

Yet again, I'm getting some inspiratetion from Prospero and recycling old unwanted wood. Interestingly enough the wood looks like new when cut up and run through a planer thicknesser. However I don't think that I will bother with cutting out and pluging the knots, I will just cut lengths from the areas in between the knots and the knots can go in the dumpster. It still needs to be quick, simple and easy, for it to make sense for me!