nice quality hard wood moulding frames.

[Not your average framer]

I like to make a range of hard wood frames which hopefully will appeal to some customers. They do sell, but not at a massive rate. However they do tick over a bit and they often lead to framing enquiries and orders. My favorite wood type is oak and there was a time when I also made Ash frames a bit as well. I did not find Ash to my liking very much as the individual lengths in a frame are much more difficult in Ash as even when all four lengths are cut from the same length of moulding, getting a good match can still not be easy.

Sometimes, I will stain oak to imitate woods like mahogany which works quite well. To fit in with the timing of re-openning my shop, I am thinking of adding a few other hard woods to my range, Beech might be one of these, but I understand it can be a very hard wood and might be problematic to cut on a Morso and perhaps not that easy to join on a manual underpinner. I would welcome any thoughts regarding cutting and joining beech. When I was being trained at Triton Galleries, they sold quite a lot of frames in bare tulipwood.

In those days Venton Enterprises was supplying some very clean looking almost white tulipwood mouldings from Rumainia and they were extremely popular. Of course Venton Enterprises is sadly now long gone, but I am still thinking about trying some tulipwood frame never the less. Tulipwood often has small dark almost black markinging in the wood, which will need to be treated as discarded waste and can have small areas of green, orblue grey discolouration, which are less than helpful, but I am still thinking about how this wood might be helpful in producing some hopefully popular frames.

I have some samples of mouldings produced from Koto, which I would like to produce frames from as well. I like these very much. The wood grain presentation does vary somewhat, but it is something quite interesting as well. I have cut and joined some of the Koto will generally very acceptable results. As a wood type, I am thinking that it will look a little different displayed in shop windows and may create some useful customer interest. I am thinking that promoting a range of hardwood frames from my shop window, may well be a speciality which may create some useful sales.

Any thoughts?
Mark.

[Justintime]

Plain polished oak has always been very popular for us, mostly just straight narrow profiles. Ash is more popular with Artists/printmakers for exhibitions and more contemporary minded customers. Often its limed or a rubbed back pale paint finish.

[Not your average framer]

Thanks!

[Not your average framer]

Part of my thinking is that, there is not much competition from the usual "run of the mill" ready made frames from the cheap shops. Also the better quality frames made from nice wood type are an obvious choice for giving as gifts. I also like nicely finished Pine frames, as these can be easily presented as nice frames as well. All my Pine frames are always free of knots and I try to make the most of lengths of Pine mouldings which have the best looking grain. Less attractive bits of Pine don't get wasted as they get used for a miriad of other purposes.

I make many of my deep box frames and some stacked frames as well from Pine left over scraps as well. For me, Pine mouldings are generally a good money maker. I like to make various impulse buy items to display in my shop windows and in particular the most attractive pieces of Pine, with really nice wood grain can be made in to some very nice and particularly popular items. Pine was extremely popular in earlier era's and before the cheap mass production of todays era, there were many craftsmen who knew how to present and finish Pine as an attractive and decent quality product. Some of us still do so!