stacked frames

[Trinity]

If you do this kind of thing would anyone like to share and tell?
Thanks

[prospero]

Given a chance I for one will bang on about it until Doomsday.

[Not your average framer]

Too many larger profile frames are not as solid, or impressive as they actually could be and also they are not always the best value for money, when comparing them with smaller mouldings which have been chosen to be stacked together to make something really solid and impressive looking. Before I became a picture framer, I spend plenty of time buying and selling classic looking iat tems in local auctions and I know what genuine distress finishes look like of desirable older and collectible furniture needs to look like.

I've been repairing and remodelling items from the auctions and turning damaged and unwanted older furniture in to nice condition items. You need to recognise what those in the know are looking for and how to produce that look. I have spent a very long time hanging about in up market auctions and stately home teaching myself what real and desirable quality looks like. That's what is so special about the better looking hand finished and stacked moulding frames and that's where the decent money is.

BTW, Prospero once told me that in framing, nothing succeeds like excess and that is part of the look, as well. People who are well healed and like nice things can spot top draw quality immediately and it's good to visit the sort of places, that these sort people go shopping for nice things, to get to know the kind of look, which these people are looking for and then learn how to copy it. Such customers are generally the recession proof customers who will keep you in business during hard times, so it's worth getting to know what they like. Nice things in your shop windows will always get you noticed.

[Trinity]

Well that's the tell fellas, let's get some show for the new year please.

[Not your average framer]

That's what I am counting on for the new year. There's a very big difference between things that people think are nice and things that are stunning. Have a guess which category is the one that really sells? I can guarantee you that it won't be remotely like the "run of he mill" stuff that you see all over the place, it will be items that are quite unique and very classy as well.

[Not your average framer]

Pine moulding are generally thought of as a bit cheap and cheerful and not all that classy, but that's not always true. Really old looking and stacked antique pine that looks suitably weather beaten and maybe about a hundred years old is extremely salable in an older rural town with plenty of older cottages and barn conversions in the local area, but just finishing such items with a bit of antique pine stain is not what it's all about. It's also about raised woodgrain, and discolouration. Yes, I'm talking about really horrible and manky. That's what you can charge some useful money for, but the mouldings need to have a good measure of that older shape and style about them and this is where the stacked mouldings come to the rescue. Modern pine mouldings don't look anything like the old fashioned moulding profiles, or proportions.

So I stack some different moulding together to give an impression of the deeper profiles and shapes of long ago and I don't put the same looking profiles in the window on a regular basis. You are not going to have a regular supply of the same old and perhaps no longer available mouldings are you, life does not work like this does it. Old beaten up pine frames need to be pretty much unique, that's what the customers are looking for and many such customers don't want that same things as somebody else, that's the attraction with having something that's unique. So I ring the changes a bit. Mouldings with a little bit of detail and shape to them is like a kit of bits, that can be sliced up and rearranged to make something very different and any left over bits can be used in conjunction with something else.

People are not that much in to buying something that looks like it's just "run of the mill" mass produced stuff. Stuff like this is usually perceived as cheap, which is no help to you, or me. You have to sell a lot of cheap stuff to make any worthwhile money and this means working harder for less money per item. I'm not interested in working myself in to the ground, for next to nothing. It's just not worth it. Why would I want to do that? It's pointless! We are starting to live in rather hard times, why join the race to the bottom trying to beat somebody else's prices just to put a few pounds in the till and to scrap by on only marginal profit levels. I'm in to stacked moulding profiles because would be customers can't get the same item from anywhere else and what it's up for sale for, is what it costs to buy it. The price is not unreasonable and I'm not ripping anyone off, so if someone wants it, why should I drop my price.

Stacked mouldings is a niche market. You are offering something special and more desirable that items than are cheap mass produced rubbish. Nice things cost, they always have. However I always make sure that my special items are obviously well worth the money. If you are thinking about getting in to stacked moulding frames, then remember that it is about making niche market items at niche market prices.

[Not your average framer]

Stacked moulding frames is not something that is particularly easy to explain very easily in woods to someone who does not have much experience of such things. It is a separate area of creativity, where different moulding shapes are used in conjunction with each other to create a combined and lager frame profile to acheive the result that was required. It does not mean that you will always use individual mouldings in exactly the same form as supplied, as not everything will fit together as intended in it's original form. This is where some mouldings get adapted to fit together, so that everything blends in to one profile that does not look like it has just been cobbled together out of a random collection of bits and pieces, but instead looks like one homoginous whole. There are times when parts of individual moulding will be reassembled in a different form to how they were originally presented. There are no specific rights, or wrongs in how this is accomplished and different framers will have their own preferred ways of doig things.

I personally produce a variety of different looking frames for different ares of the market and besides making fully bespoke frames, I also produce some ready made frames as well. The ready made frames are not specifically sold as normal ready made frames, but I have quite a good market for older looking old looking slightly beaten up looking frames. I sell these at a higher price than my normal ready made frames, but not at the kind of price, which is normally charged for bespoke stacked moulding frames. Such stacked frames are displayed for sale in my shop windows and need to be restricted in the degree of how much stacking of mouldings is used and the level of labour, or the level of finishing is employed. Many such frames are using left over scrap bits of moulding, to enable me to control my costs and also to maximise the financial return that I can get from using up my left over scraps.

There are also limits to how many frames that I choose to make to any one particular design. I am selling items that are intended to have a degree of uniqueness about them. It's a niche market and making too many frames that are essentially the same is detremental to maintaining the uniqueness of what I an offering. When these frames cease to be somewhat unique and special, they become a lot less interesting to the customers, so I like to ring the changes quite a bit. I make different versions of many items, so that customers don't see too many similarities. One such variation is making some as box frames, nice looking box frames are hard to find and this is especially true if the look a bit anique as well. I have a massive stock of older looking mouldings which I bought as discontinued and discounted items. Many of these are factory finished mouldings, but no matter, I still refinish tham to suit my requirements.

I would like to point out that speed of producing such items is the key to making stuff like this pay off. My usual criteria of quick, simple and easy is very necessary to making much of my work profitable at all. Spending too much time producing something will far too easily kill any potential for profit also there does need to be a real flow to the work to create the look the sells. Taking too much time can also spoil the final look and feel.

[Trinity]

Thank you, I'd be intere4sted to see some as you go photos if you have the opportunity

[Not your average framer]

Don't pursaude your self to copy too much what Prosperro and I do to the extent that you don't develop your own way of doing things, It's actually very much more difficult trying to be creative when trying to copy other people. Pick and choose which bits that we do, but try experimenting with you own ideas too! Creativity needs to something which comes naturally, it's part of you and there is a strong bit of your own individuality about it. Eventually it will be something which is very individual to you.

[David]

I use stacked frames quite alot, just building up layers like you would with mount board adding different colours, textures and/or shapes. Sometimes it's the same moulding to make it wider, it works well when you have different widths of the same moulding so that you also get a progression in contours. I usually just double stack but a couple of these are triple stacked. It also tends to be on smaller pictures. You can also place the glass between mouldings to keep the glass off the artwork.

[David]

I also stack moulding to make box frames, rather than hiding them behind the main frame they can be seen from the front and form part of the design. The moulding forming the box part of the frame is turned through 90° and cut with the rebate facing up, works better with square profiles if using a morso as curved shapes break up on the underside.

[Not your average framer]

I done lots of frames like this too. Not only that,but it works really well when buying up job lots of the right discontined moulding at discounted clearance prices. It's well worth giving David's post and photos a good looking over, there is much to leasrn from his post for some of us. Well done David, these photos are superbly presented frames which really appeal to those who want something that's stands out from the usual "run of the mill' and is instantly recognised as top drawer quality.

[David]

This one started as raw moulding, the frame contains a model submarine and I wanted a moulding profile to echo the profile of the hull, it was 'roughly' painted in battleship grey to simulate a ships painted finish.

[prospero]

One of the most versatile and fruitful systems of stacking I have found is a flat piece with narrower mouldings
on each edge. often called a 'Cassetta' pattern. There are endless variations. It particularly suitable for hand-finished
stuff as you can match the finish on the edge mouldings and create an interesting finish on the flat.

Here's one I did earlier....

A 5ft painting really needs a generous frame and the only way to get a 5" moulding is to stack it.

There are very wide mouldings available commercially, but you choice is very limited. And not many framers could cut it either.

[David]

That's very classy. When joining the inner frame to the flat piece do you machine a rebate into the back of the inner frame or is it a 'butt' joint?

[Not your average framer]

Yes, it is very classy, but the two thinner mouldings are usually fairly inexpensive and the flat section in the middle can just be something suitable, which is flat and of the require dimensions. If you are having to spend to much at the outset on materials, it makes profitability and the viability of what you are doing a little more difficult, but profiles like this are your friend.

There's all to often a lot of time spend making the finished frame look great, but that time needs to be paid for, if you are to make a worthwhile living. That is why the material costs are such a big deal. You have probably noticed from some of my posts that I am frequently mentioning that I like quick, simple and easy, well this is my formula for being sucessful and profitable.

As you will also no doubt realise a lot of this is about quality workmanship. Well it takes a lot of practice and work out how to combine quality workmanship with quick, simple and easy, but it's not as impossible as it may sound. However I means working at a high rate of work and getting things right first time, every time, but it is doable.

[Not your average framer]

I come from a relatively economically depressed part of the country and I really fairly heavily in to producing items aimed at the more niche oriented part of the market to survive in an area where there can be a certain amount of price resistance. A lot of the difficulty is that the prices that I need to sell a lot of the mainstream framing jobs for means that I am working flat out to barely scrap by. It is for this reason, I do a lot more of the less mainstream work and concentrate on the niche market items, such as Hand finished and, or stacked moulding frames. However, even then it is necessary to be keeping busy and selling enough of this niche market related product to remain profitable and viable. So I do a bit of the niche end of the market as really made items, these are much more desirable than the usual more "run of the mill" ready made market and therefore sell for a more worthwhile price, but there is a basic equation to get right between what price yeild a worthwhile level of sales and how much is a sensible level of cost for making such items.

Customers pay a premium for items that are something a bit special, but there is a cost involved in producing such items at that quality level and there is a bit of a balancing act to get this right. I've been doing this long enough to know what sells fairly well and what does not. Oak, pine and tulipwood are the favorite materials to produce much of my niche market stuff. Oak sells like crazy, I usually only need to put a couple of oak frames in the shop window and they will sell in almost no time. Really old looking rustic pine is also a big selling thing as well, but I'm not talking about just your common, or garden variety of antique stained pine, it is a lot more to it than than. Tulipwood works well, for items with a bit more class and what passes for items with a really top drawer look and finish, this is the stuff that's a bit slower to sell, but it's worth a little bit of waiting, because it always decent money.

I try to produce things that are easily recognised as a bit unique, distinctive and of a style that you don't see everywhere, but there is a limit to how much time call be sensibly spent on making things look different, if it involves too much work, or excessive material costs. This is where how you choose what to make, how you finish it and what materials to use pays off. Sure many of us can spend the earth producing something that turns every head that sees it, but making a worthwhile return on what you make is always going to be the acid test. Wherever you are based, you really need to know your market and the potential for selling each item that you make and display for sale. When you first start off, is a very difficult time. Enough stuff has to sell to keep you business solvent. This is the hard edge of reality!

If you are just starting out take a good hard look at the places where people with money buy nice things and how much they expect to pay for them. Figure out in your head what it costs to make such things and how this compare with what they are selling for. Places which are selling nice things to up markets customers always have an edge, If you think about and have got your eyes open, perhaps you can get a good idea what this edge is about. People who succeed usually have got some special working for them. Why should not you have something special working for you! Lots of things can be made to look nice, but it's the stunning and exceptional that everyone would like to buy. If it's not super eye catching, then what is it and what is the essential something that's missing? There's an aweful lot about mindset, that goes with so much of this. Give your brain a tune up. It makes a big difference!

[prospero]

That's very classy. When joining the inner frame to the flat piece do you machine a rebate into the back of the inner frame or is it a 'butt' joint?

The flat piece in this case is a flat moulding on it's back, so the inner frame just drops right in. I could have joined it
to a flat edge but this way it's easier the locate. It's hard to get a perfect fit when stacking mouldings together but if
it's hand-finished afterwards I grout any small discrepancies with cartridge glue.

The big advantage with this stacking system is that you can rip down the centre piece to get exactly the size you want.
The rough-sawn edge will be covered.

[David]

Of course, simple when you know how, I should have worked that one out. I'm still learning! Thank you.

[Not your average framer]

The Stacked frames approach is not just about producing frames, but it easily adapts to making all manner of other nice bits and pieces, which you can display in your shop windows as items for sale. It does not have to be items made to order for specific customers, but can be items just made up for stock. If you've got your mouldings scraps box getting too full and a moment when things are a bit quite, it might be time to have a sort out and see if the scraps that you have got are suitable for making something interesting. It's really great to keep your shop windows interesting, when you can and it relieves the boredom when things are a bit quite and not much is going on. It might surprise you, but it's not all go down here in rural Devon all the time and sometimes generating sales requires a bit of initiative. There are often people looking for ideas for presents for someone and they might be looking for something nicer that the usual mass produced giftware from the local gift shop, but something with a bit more character.

My town is quite a small town, but there are people living here who drive to the nearest railway station and travel up to London to spend the day shopping, once in a while. They are mostly looking for nice things to buy as Christmas presents, or birthday presents. So people will buy nice things, but they don't always expect to to see nice things in the local shop and the only way this is going to change is to display nice things in the shop windows. I get a lot of my inspiration looking around in trendy upmarket places when I get the change to be out and about. Finding inspiration is something that is not always easy. Filling the shop windows with the same old stuff all the time, does not always work. I find it quite important to be always finding new and unique ideas. Something that the customers have never seen before, always seems to have an added attraction to customers. There just is not much of an ongoing market for the same old thing again and again. Variety truly is the spice of life, when it comes to keeping the sales side of things on the move during quieter periods.

Years ago tourist visitors, used to spend money wandering around the town, but this has not been like this for years. They have a number of attractions in different places to visit and after visiting each attraction, they move on to the next one. Many of the older tourist visitors don't do this and spend time wandering around the town, but they don't usually spend money anymore. So what sells these days? Well is usually things that are a bit quirky and unusual. I avoid the usual "run of the mill" stuff or anything which you might see in the cheap shops, or even charity shops. Once anything starts turning up in the charity shops it is usually the kiss of death to any sales potential whatsoever. I often produce stacked frames, which have a bit of an art deco look about them, these used to sell really well at one time, but less so now. However, I still can sell them if I put a matching pair of frames in the window, but people often try a knock you down thinking that if they buy two the should be a discount, but I just tell them No. They are only available as a matching pair, take it, or leave it and you have to be prepared to let them walk if they don't get the price they want. This unfortunately is how it is these days.