New to framing - Advice painting bare wood

[JC01]

Hi all,

I'm new to framing, having picked it up in the final lockdown, so please be gentle.

So far I have been enjoying making bare wood frames, and am pretty happy with the results. However, I would now like to level up a little and begin to paint my frames.

1.

I'm wondering if anyone could advise on the wood that gives the best results, and to keep costs down, is there a particular one that is cheaper? For example, I've made some oak and ash frames, same size and rebate, is there an advantage of using one over the other?

2.

I'm also interested in the process involved; sanding, priming and finally coating of the wood. Do I need to sand the bare wood beforehand (that Lion supplies for example) and is there a range of undercoats that you would recommend?

Lots of woodworking tips on the web but finding it hard to find any that are specific to framing.

Thank you in advance!

[Gesso&Bole]

If you are planning on a painted finish where you don't want to see the grain, I would start with Obeche. If you want to see the grain then oak
or ash will be best.

As a start point I would suggest some chalky emulsion, and either some polyvine decorators varnish or Liberon Black Bison wax to finish.

Fill any holes with fine polyfilla, quick rub down with 180 grit paper, couple of coats of paint, and then wax.

At that point you have begun the journey into the murky world of hand finishing. . . .

[Not your average framer]

I do lots of hand finished frames. There's a little bit of a learning curve, but it's mostly little more than a bit of practice. Lion make some really nice mouldings, but usually hand finisihed frames are made from mouldings from lower cost suppliers, in order to help you profit margins. Quite a bit of my hand finished frames are made from Pine. The trick is to buy the mouldings made from good quality pine with almost no knots per moulding length. These are the ones made from selected grade of pine. Many of the wider pine mouldings have lots of knots. Some, but not all of the more narrow pine moulding are virtually knot free. these are the ones that you want. I don't bother trying to fill and hide knots, but cut the knots out and bin them, I just can't be doing with them. I'm a bit unusual, in so far as I am careful not to cut the bits with knots too small, so I can turn them into rustic pine frames. I don't do anything to hide the knots, I just paint the finished frames to look old and sell them. Don't bother with antique pine stain, it's a waste of money and that look is long gone anyway!

I am based in a small rural, but very old town and lots of the houses around here are hundreds of years old, with exposed beams inside the rooms and stuff like that. Old fashioned looking rustic frames just fly out the door if the price is right, it's really not hard work at all. I am careful not to raise the grain so I quickly paint these frames a wipe away any surplus paint quite quickly and dry the paint quickly with a hot air gun. It's the water in water based paints, which raises the grain, but not if you don't give it enough time while wet to do so. For me, wooden mouldings for hand finishes need to be at an advantages price to me, which will help my potential for profit. My profit comes from both sensible purchasing price and making a good enough job of making the frames to attract a worthwhile sales price. Customers are not impressed by prices, whch seem to low and they think that things which are too cheap, must have something wrong with them. So, don't bother with the cheap end of the market, it's not the place to be. I use a bench top belt sander to make the front face of my corners super smooth a flush, if the old one is not quite perfect.

There is not such thing as that will do! Everybody knows good quality when they see it. There's no prizes for turning out stuff that's not quite perfect! Generally, anything which is sub standard, does not sell. Those days are long gone. Customers are expecting perfect these days and don't accept anything else. They don't need to and why should they! Always fill and sand any slight defects before hand finishing. I'm not a big fan of Obeche, but some moulding profiles are only available in Obeche, but be warned some Obeche moulding are not always easy to get a nice smooth water based painted finish on and it's not uncommon to need to repeatedly prime and sand Obeche quite a bit, before you can get a really top quality finish. I don't like too much sanding, I've had a stroke and sanding is less easy after a stroke, so you won't be surprised that I try to avoid as much sanding as I can! Controlling how much time that you spend making things has a lot to do with, if you are going to make a worthwhile profit, or not, it's as simple as that! I hope at least some of this will be helpful and useful to you.

[Not your average framer]

I strongly agree with Jeremy about chalky emulsion. It's great!

[Not your average framer]

There are many framers on this forum, who do hand finishing. A lot of us are to some degree influenced by each other, but many of us have their own way of doing things which works for them. It's well worth thinking about the different things which are posted regarding hand fnishing, by different forum members, as we all have something worth taking notice of. Also, there's quite a few old timers who've been hand finishing for decades and are very knowledgible indeed. You come to the right place to ask for some great tips.

[JC01]

Lots of good advice there, thank you.

Interesting to hear your mention of Polyfilla, Jeremy. Can this be used as a substitute for a primer? Then crack on with the chalky emulsion after that?

I have a bare ash frame from Lion (that I want to make white) I was planning on experimenting with this weekend so may try this method...

[Not your average framer]

You will notice that Jeremy refers to fine polyfiller, which is different to plain old ordinary polyfillers and he is not the only framer who uses it and does hand finishing. Lots of us use it. It's good stuff! I first heard about it from Pete Bingham a very well known framer, who was also well known for hand finishing. Prospero also has mentioned it as well. Prospero is one of the well known guru's of hand finishing, who really knows what he's talking about. It's well worth checking out his forum posts.

[Not your average framer]

It is almost always much easier to use Obeche mouldings, when it is necessary to produce nicely shaped profiles, but very often less shapely mouldings are often easy to produce from Pine mouldings at lower cost. Another particularly useful wood type for mouldings is Oak, Many Oak moulding are plain flat mouldings, but there are some relatively small flat Oak mouldings, which are particularly helpful due to their very reasonable cost. However these reasonably priced Oak moulding are are advantageous for both profitability and customer appeal. I sell quite a lot of oak frames. There are also a few smaller nicely shaped Oak mouldings as well and these can be very popular with customers as well. These are sometimes very reasonably priced as well. It is not always necessary to hand finish Oak, as it often looks great when left un-finished, but there still are time when Oak can be hand fnished to advantage as well. Washed and polish Oak can be an extremely classy looking finish, when framing the right subject matter. I also do very well, with an aged washed Oak finish as well. Aged Oak is often a quite subtile looking finish, but also looks very special indeed.

I'm not so much a fan of Ash mouldings, as I find that Ash varies visually to much, even when the pieces all come from only one length of moulding. Un-stained Ash does tend to yellow with age, but it's not a nice yellow at all. Limed black Ash was a very popular finish at one time, but it has fallen from popularity in modern times, quite a lot. Find the best colour to stain Ash for the best effect is not necessarily an easy decision, or a particularly obvious choice. Ash still sells, but I find it hard to get much excited about it, but that's probably just me! I,m quite good at gran popping, which I think can be really stunning. Actually Ash is the classic grain popping wood. Grain popping is a real big deal in the USA, but not nearly as popular in the UK for some reason. Liming with colours other than white, can be quite stunning, if it is done right, but it's often not a big hit with the customers. Liming an off black painted Ash with a golden coloured wax tends to look really amazng and it attracts attention in the shop window. It can sell, but it's not exactly a massive sales item. I'm not sure why, because it definitely attracts attention, but it does not seem to translate into sales all that well.

[Gesso&Bole]

Ash is not going to be an easy one to turn into a solid white, but looks good painted and then sanded smooth so there is some of the wood showing through. Then wax and polish.

Obviously if you put enough coats of paint on you can obscure the grain. But if that was the finish I wanted I wouldn’t start with ash!

[Gesso&Bole]

I have experimented with fine polyfilla and plaster of Paris to coat moulding prior to painting. It is possible to make it work, but not practical.

Use gesso if that’s what you want to achieve.

[Not your average framer]

There is considerable beauty in many of the nicely figured and grained woods. Not all of them are all that expesive at all. Modern day customers are not all cheap skates, who buy cheap and cheerful ready made frames. There is much more interest in putting nice items in their homes and this even applies to those with limited budgets. Many such customers still want nicer quality frames and seek out nicely made frames within their limited budgets. There is a definite openning within the limited budget market for good quality frames as well. Hand finished Oak and Pine can enable you to exploit this market, without sacrificing your profit margins. 12mm wide flat Oak moulding are really easy to sell. It's not how narrow they are, it's how they are presented! Narrow Oak frames with suitably wide mounts, look very stylish, particularly with smooth un-textured mountboard. The victorians, mostly used smooth un-textured mountboard. It's a very classic look and looks completely different from those cheap and cheerful ready made frames which all seem to look the same.

There is a particular technique to tone down the excessively obvious grain in pine mouldings, when they are stained. Yes' Pine can look amazing with a much more subtile looking grain and it's quite easy to do. The secret is a thin wash of white emulsion applied first and the surplus quickly wiped away. Before the wash, which has soaked in to the wood can even start to dry, the stain is immediated applied. The super absorbent parts of the grain are already filled with the wash and cannot suck up excessive amounts of the wood stain. Not only that, but a little of the under lying wash can make the stain slightly misty, which slightly softens the definion of the wood grain which creates the impression that it's a more expensive type of wood. It looks great! In general most commercial wood stained are not very good value for money. I very often mix my own using acrylic paint and water, I also then have the option to mix my own custom colours. There is a look which you can get from many commercially available stains, which looks cheap and lacks style. Nicely stained wood does not have to look like it has been stained at all.

I am also a big fan of largely matt finishes over my stained finishes. I like the understated look, it's subtile and looks really high quality. We live in an age when lots of wood has a plastic veneer. I am always careful to avoid the "plastic" look. Dscerning customers usually do not like the "plastic" look and less discerning customers, won't buy from you, because they usually only want whatever is cheapest. There is no future in eithe rbeing cheap, or selling what looks cheap. The up market side of things is the only sensible way to go. The middle of the market is a really boring part of the market, the cheapskates wont be interested, neither will the more discerning customers. However nice looking things, aimed at the upper end of the budget market, are often worthwhile and also with care these can be worthwhile and adequately profitable. Never sacrifice your profit margins to make a sale, as this is a downward slippery slope which leads nowhere good. I think that we all understand that the government needs to restore sound finances as time goes on and this will affect everybody, including us.

Maintaining profit margins is going to be essential and in some areas, some of us will use hand finishing and re-work old stock as part of how to do this. It's going to make sense to many of us, as time goes on!

[prospero]

All my frames nowadays originate with bare wood. Using pre-finished lengths has become quite alien to me.

Woods such as Oak and Ash have an attractive grain pattern and this needs to be seen. A simple stain and shellacking
and a wax polish is the way to finish these woods. Same with more uncommon woods such as Beech, Walnut, Cherry, etc.
Pine can look good done this way.
For painted finishes using these (more expensive) woods is a bit of a waste of money. Obeche/Ayous is the favourite.
I typically fill the grain with fine filler (Cheap as chips from Screwfix 'No-Nonsense' range). To do this I dip a wet brush
in the pot and scrub it on in the manner of the old shaving soap. Wipe of with a rag (J-cloth type). If you take your
time with this stage it saves a lot of sanding later. Don't apply too thickly or it is hard work.
When it has dried out a quick sanding to remove any lumps and excess filler and a coat or two of suitable primer to build
up a nice smooth base. I use the thick emulsion that is meant for ceilings and walls to fill minor cracks. But any matt emulsion
will do. If you add a bit of dry pigment you can bulk it up a bit. After a couple of coats it can be sanded to produce a really
smooth finish. This type of paint on it's own is not very durable and needs a coat of wax to make it so. Or, what I do the produce
a painted finish is to use top-coats of artist's quality Acrylic paint. This is as tough as old boots.
With practice and experimentation you can produce nice finishes. There are no hard-and-fast rules as such. Basically, if it doesn't drop off
it's fine.
If you want a very smooth finish then the good old Gesso is the way to go. It does take a lot longer and more faffing about. Best
reserved for when you are doing fine gilding in my book.

[Not your average framer]

[vintage frames]

Lots of good advice there.
I do have to repeat Gesso+Bole's comment. If you want the near perfect finish for painting, then RSG gesso is only way to go. Not the nasty acrylic gesso you can buy in a can and that takes forever to sand down. Two or three coats of natural gesso on to the bare wood, two grades of sandpaper 180 grit and 320grit and the finish will be like polished marble.
Then you can paint over with whatever you like and rub on a little wax to make it look professional.
However, whilst that's how you can achieve perfection, you might not be aiming for that level of finish and that's where the advice from Prospero is both valid and easy to follow.

[Not your average framer]

I am currently spending the next two weeks getting my home ready for my wife to come home from hospital, but after she has come home, I will be ordering a couple of hundred feet of a 12mm x 12mm flat Oak moulding. It's great for making washed Oak frames! Watered down black acrylic paint will cover in one coat, it you get the mix right. It is definitely much easier to paint the moulding first, before cutting and joining the frame. Oak also looks really good with a mahogany coloured wash as well, as always this is a finish which looks best as a subtile effect, so not too much red! I like a mix of brown, grey and a little touch of read acrylic paints in water.

I find it difficult to get nice quality narrow black mouldings these days. Suppliers are mostly geared to lower prices for black mouldings, so the quality is not always all that helpful. If I need to fill and re-touch the corner joints, it affects my profitablity, which is too much trouble! It customers are offered a nice looking black Oak, instead of a plastic looking factory finished mouling, most want the Oak. It's very quick and easy, to produce narrow black Oak mouldings and also easy to sell. The fact that I have various ways of presenting narrow Oak mouldings and they are always popular is very helpful to me.

Quick, easy and simple hard finished reasonable priced narrow hard wood mouldings is a very interesting way to offer something special to customers, which they can't usually get elsewhere! It's also not difficult to find suitably priced narrow Oak mouldings either. Lots of suppliers sell such moulings at really helpful prices! There are some very tempting narrow gothic style moldings in both Ash and Oak which have a lot of potential for worthwhile mark up when hand finished with muted colour washes as well. Again the prices are very helpful and it's a classic look as well. Too quote Arthur Daley, " The world is your lobster"! Helpfully priced mouldings and really quick and easy finishes, how can you go wrong!

[Not your average framer]

How many of us understand the difference between a stain and a wash. Stains are generally quite transparent, but washes are at least to some dgree containing an element of opaque, or semi opaque. It's the opaque, or semi opaque part of a wash which is where the magic is! To start of with, I much prefer narrow Pine mouldings to narrow obeche mouldings. I can do lot lots of interesting things with raw Pine, it's very versatile, but it is not actually very popular with many framers, who don't know what's so useful about Pine! Narrow Pine mouldings with a nicely profiled shape are often great for a mixture of stained, or painted finishes, with an interesting wash as a top coat. It's a lot more interesting look, many Pine mouldings are particularly advantageous in terms of cost and such finishes, don't need to be time consuming. The wash as a top coat can also help to hide a bit of the not always helpful effects of the Pine wood grain and it the underlying base colour is one that also helps to suppress the wood grain as well, so much the better!

If the moulding has a few little narrow grooves, it's relatively quick and easy to mix a little gilt paste, with white spirt and let a subtile hint of gold run along these grooves. We are not looking for an overpowering effect here, but just a delicate highlight insteed. Afterward the finish can be sealed with a coat of Dead flat (matt) acrylic wax finish varnish. It's a nice soft finish, which looks really classy indeed. For myself, like the underlying colour to be a muted colour. I am really in to muted in a big way, most of my finishes are about muted, not in your face colours. I think that it has a lot to do with instantly recognisable totally classy finishes and that for me is where much of the money is and it's still hand finished, which many competitors don't do! Hand finishing is not a trivial thing, it's very much where is at for the up market and niche market way of doing things. It's a bit of practice plus trial and error, but for most of us, it's been well worth doing!

[JC01]

As a first post, I think it's gone rather well - so thank you all for your advice

On this occasion I think I'll paint and sand it with the grain showing through, it is a nice piece of ash I must admit.

Then for future frames I'll experiment with Obeche. Is there a favourite supplier? I've only used Lion so far and their range isn't particularly large and I fear they're slightly more pricey than others?

Loving this forum already.
JC

[Gesso&Bole]

rose & hollis have a good range that you can see on their website roseandhollis.co.uk. You will have to phone or email to get a price list. Most other suppliers have barewoods too

[prospero]

Rose&Hollis have the biggest selection of plain woods. They are also excellent when it comes to customer service.

Another thing you can do is to 're-purpose' existing finished mouldings. Many are available (at the right price) as end of line
bargains and general warehouse clearances. If the shape is good then the finish doesn't matter. Can be a bit of a PITA to strip
them down to a condition where they will accept a new finish. Often any gold can be wiped off with acetone (messy) but you
are left with a nice smooth gesso base.

[vintage frames]

There's also Norfolk Mouldings for bespoke orders and
Piaf 2 - huge catalogue of profiles.