Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

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Not your average framer
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Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I am starting to look at producing some hexagonal and octagonal frames for the "interior design" market. I was going to be producing these for one of my interior design friends, but she is no longer intending to sell these as she is down sizing and sub letting a large part of her shop to another retailer. As a result I now feel free to start producing to sell from my shop window. I am acticipating producing these from Plywood, but they will need strong and nicely finished corner joints. Any ideas, or suggestions will be very welcome!
Thanks,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

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prospero
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by prospero »

What width of moulding Mark?
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Perhaps 12mm, or 18mm plywood. I not so keen on using chipboard, but I also have got some 12mm large flat solid pine panels, which I may use instead. I have 10 inch diameter sliding mitre saw and also a digital protactor, which is capable of measuring angles to a reasolution of 0.1 degrees. These are intended as hexagonal and octagonal wall sheves. I was going to produce some for a friend who has a local interior design shop. She is preparing to sub-let a large part of her shop to another business and won't be needing to sell, so many sales items in the future as she won't have the available space to display items for sale.

Her shop is not far from my own shop and she is a very special friend, I am very sad to see how the present difficulties have been affecting the decisions which she feels need to taken, She is just so good at the things that she does and it's hard to see this happening to such a good friend. I think that it's going to be fairly straight forward to accurately cut the wood using my sliding mitre saw which is able to make cross cuts of upto 14 inches wide. The material cost is not going to be a problem, so I think that it still makes good sense to produce a couple for the shop windows. I feel that it will help me to have a good variety of different types of items in my shop windows, as it's getting more difficult to run a business these days.

I got well stocked up on most items, that I thought I would need for my business at the start of the Covid crises, more than three years ago. I probably need to buy a few more items, but for most things I guess that I'm in pretty good shape. I had a stroke shortly after Covid started, as I started to recover and my wife was my carer, I then was planning to reopen my shop, butthen she also had a stroke and I became her carer. Now I think it is time to start getting my shop sorted out and to re-open it for business. I'm a bit of an odd ball and don't mind producing unusual things, especially when using up left over bits and pieces.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I am hoping that I can just glue and side pin these joints and not have to do hardly any filling at all. Any significant sanding and filling is not going to help my profitability. I have a detail sander, a normal rectangular sander and a randon orbit sandered, but I really don't want to be filling and sanding as it will make this a much bigger job.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by GeoSpectrum »

If you made them a bit wider you could probably get a bessy clamp around them. Pinning is going to be fun but you may be able to use a biscuit joiner. You should be able to use standard moulding.
Alan Huntley
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I don't think that a standard moulding is going to be possible, people buy these as wall hanging shelving units and they probably need to be about 5 inches deep to provide some usable shelf space. There still is a possibility of producing these from 18mm MDF. I am not particularly keen on cutting MDF, because of the potential health risks associated with MDF dust. I use both my table saw and my sliding mitre saw outside in my back yard as both of these machines create rather a lot of air bourne dust, which gets everywhere.

I need a dry still day to be using these saws out of doors and I try to use these so any saw dust travels away from me. I do have a dust mask and some safety glasses, I don't use elasticated googles as I have found these to be very restrictive and uncomfortable. I suppose than if I was able to use 18mm MDF this would be very easy to join with glue and a pneumatic brad nailer a hopefully I could punch the brad nails slightly below the surface and only need to do a very minimal amount of filling, prior to handfinishing.

MDF does not generally finish well with water based finishes unless a sealer has been applied first. I my case, this would probably be accomplished using watered down PVA, which would be rapidly dried with a hot air gun and then sanded smooth with my randon orbital sander which is usually quite quick and easy. I like a mixed of Craig and Rose chalky emulsion paint and acrylic paint for jobs like these as the cover well and don't require an excessive amount of time to produce a really nice finish.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by fusionframer »

I use mdf for panels inside cupboard doors and use zinsser bullseye primer & sealer. It is water based and requires no other sealer.

It can also be sprayed on for a neat finish, but if there is a smaller amount, i use a mini roller.

Nick
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prospero
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by prospero »

From my experience of cutting/joining multi-angle frames you will not get the accuracy with your setup.
You just have to get it as near as possible. A fair amount of sanding/filling is unavoidable.
There is no magic method. It's a lot of work and there is no getting away from it. :cry:
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I have a digital angle finder, which reads down to 0.1 degree. I am thingking that if I can get really close the chalky paint shoul have enough body to had any slight join lines at the corners. I am hoping that that will be good enough. Do you think that the digital angle finder should enable me to be accurate enough. My plan is to tape the corners together with masking tape run some PVA glue into the joints and fold all the sides together. After the glue has set for long enough, i will remove the masking tape and cross pin the corners using my 18 gauage pneumatic brad nailer. I am thinking that this should be strong enough to be really solid. Does this sound like a good plan, Peter?
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

A possible alternative to usuing brad nails, might be to drill sort small holes and insert glue and small dowels, if brad nails might cause too much shock the the glued joint.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by prospero »

I'm with you all the way on the tape idea. But I would pin it before the glue sets. :wink:

As for the angle finder, I think the best course of action is to set it and then do a 'dry' test with scrap bits until it's
spot on. Any tiny error will be multiplied X16 on an octagonal frame.

If you can make the frame sound then filling any small gaps is the least of you worries. :lol:
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Mmm, if you need to pin it before the glue sets, perhaps I am going to need to clamp the corners in place to ensure that the brad nail gun does not displace the corner while the brad nails are being fired in. What do you think? I'm a bit concerned to not do very much filling and sanding, because this may be what kills my profit. I'm not really very sure what these things nrmally sell for, but they are not uncmmon items, so they must be readily available at a reasonably affordable price, so I need to watch how been time goes into producing these.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Cutting and joining hexagonal and octagonal frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I probably need to keep my labour down to a maximim of 15 minutes per item, or this won't make sense to do these. Too much time filling and sanding these and I won't be making any worthwhile profit by making these. I am estimating the wood is going to cost me £3 and if I am rekoning on 15 minutes of labour, I am already going to be push to make my money. Too much time filling and sanding is not going to be viable!

If my materials are £3, I normally like to be charging £30 overall price and I don't thnk that is going to be a viable price. My instincts are that a overall price of £20 is going to be something much more like what customers will be willing to pay, so my material mark up needs to be less if I am to be getting £1 a minute for 15 minutes. Not a lot of wriggle room to be making a worthwhile profit, if there's much time needed for filling and sanding.

I am starting to think to it might be better to product a rectangular unit, with a dividing shelf across the middle and a pediment across the top. It would look interesting and quite impressive, but will involve much less difficulty and much less effort to produce and a lot more wriggle room to allow me to make a much more worthwhile profit. I've even got some useful secondhand materials which are just what I need to produce this from.

I will look really great as well and very different, which I usually reckon to be a really good thing, so perhaps time for a change of plan after all!
Thanks every one for getting me to think this through much better,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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