Are slips and liners becoming less popular these days?

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Not your average framer
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Are slips and liners becoming less popular these days?

Post by Not your average framer »

I still like to use slips and liners, but it seems much less common these days. Is this just me thinking this, or am I mistaken? I can't recall seeing as many and liners being used for years. I originally started using slips and liiners mostly to make the discontinued mouldings in Frinton Mouldings " bargain bundles" look more likely to sell. Most of my liners, back then were mostly really narrow discontinued moulding from the bargain bundles. I did not much know about what I was doing at the time, but I started using them and as it turned out, I was able to sell quite a lot of discontinued mouldings to customers. I have not really given it much thought, but it's still something which I still. I use quite a bit of Oak in my shop, it's always been a good seller for me, it often does not need finishing and I end up with a fair bit from Oak left overs and tend to get some of these made into ready made frames.

Part of the look which helps to sell many of the smaller frames, is acheived by adding slips and liners. A little bit of traditionally elegance seems to go down quite well with those who go past my shop windows. I do my best to create a good presentation for most things and it seems to help me a lot! It does seem to me particularly necessary when trying to sell ready made frames produced from left overs, to really push the boat out a bit. Such items are not something which you already have a customer for. if you are already located in a small, not very busy town like me and you can not suceed to convincing someone to buy what you have in your shop windows, you've pretty much blown it. This has largely been my situation since the credit crunch of 2008 and since moving to newer premises my my new shop gets more footfall although it's only 100 yards further down the road.

I like to have a good stock of nice looking slips and liners. I almost always turn to these, when I am stuck for ideas. I not saying that there's anything clever about these, but a little added elegance seems to go a long way sometimes! Mostly slips and liners are cheap as chips, so it's not a big expense. I hope that slips and liner are still going to be popular with my customers, because I've still got plenty of them to be using up!
Mark Lacey

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

Re: Are slips and liners becoming less popular these days?

Post by prospero »

I'm a big fan of liners. I use stacks of R&H A 276, I had over 1000ft this year alone and I paint every inch. :P
Usually and "Ivory" effect. They act act rather like a mount in that form a sort-of no-mans land between art
and frame. Without them, you tend to get the effect of peering though a hole.
On older styles of painting a gold slip works well with ornate gilded frame, with the slip being a few shades
lighter and a tad brighter than the frame.
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Are slips and liners becoming less popular these days?

Post by Not your average framer »

I don't just do white and gold slips, a really dark brown, or dark brown mix with some grey, or just a nice dark grey can create a good contrast, when used with with white frames. Some of these white frames are factory finished ones, which have been made mostly from left overs. I am in these days particularly aware that the added finishing touches, such as I can get from slips and liners can be very helpful in increasing the potential to acheive a sale. I am inclined to think that the days of just quickly throwing basic frames together and easily selling them have gone! However, a nicely chosen coloured slip, or liner can transform a basic, or budget moulding into something with a lot more classy look. Even narrow fillets, when painted instead of a slip, can look quite special as well and fillets can be a bit cheaper that a proper slip. I do from time to time produce some left over piece of fillets and over time these will actually add up until there is enough to be useable!

At other times, I will slice up a basic Obeche flat moulding into fillets, both of the blades which I use on the table saw are 2.5mm thick and every cut sadly turns 2.5mm into saw dust. but at the moment this can't be avoided. However choosing the right cheap Obeche moulding is still a big saving on buying factory made slips and fillets. I have a surface planer, which I prefer to call a table planer, as I more easily explains what it does and a quick run through the planer cleans up any sawn surfaces into very clean and smooth surfaces. Planing thin pieces of wood does not really work very well, so my homemade slips and fillets are a bit thicker than normal as this is a necessity for me. I often have left over pieces of pine mouldings and these often have shaped feature which look good when converted into slips. As I buy my usual pine mouldings at 200 feet at a time saving up my left overs. produces a useful amount of silp and other frames.

Ready made frames can sometimes be something, or nothing, but nicely shaped slips and liners are something else and help me to make money. It really not unusual for me to add painted slips and fillets to not very exciting ready made frames to increase the chances of a sale. I know that the minimalist thing is supposed to be all the rage, but I personally really like fancy slips and liners. I have two or three pine mouldings, which I regularly use and slice down my left overs to narrower moulding to look more appropriate as a liner. These liners often create some worthwhile extra interest, when they are added to my frames which are displayed in one of my shop windows. I also have some quite impressive, wider stacked moulding samples, which use a lot of these cheaper pine mouldings in varously different widths and moulding combinations. I don't sell huge amounts of these as they are a flag ship frame for me and are charged for accordingly, but very little gets wasted here. It's part of how I survive, in a not very busy town!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Are slips and liners becoming less popular these days?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

I like the Rose and Hollis A276, but some while ago I bought quite a lot of the Simons OBEC/0042, appears to be an identical moulding. I still to use up some that before re-ordering any more, but it is great for adding value to much plainer looking frames. Years ago, when I used to use polymer mouldings, I used this sort of sloped liner quite a lot inside some polymer mouldings. It looked quite good inside the polymer mouldings when making mirrors and part of the thinking was that a wooden liner around the mirror would be a safety feature in the event of the polymer moulding getting broken.

If I had not been given a huge amount of salvaged mirror glass, there would not have been much point, but in hindsight those mirrors were not a great sucess for me. Mirrors don't always seem to be a particularly worthwhile sales Item for me. Normal mirrors just don't seem to be something, where I can compete with the cheap shops on. However pine mirrors with shelves is another matter and I can still manage to sell these. A relatively in-expnsive liner seems to me to be not only profitable in itself, but also multiplies the value of any frame to which you add the liner. A lot of my liners are just ordinary and not very special mouldings, which I just happen have hanging around. If the look O.K., that is probably good enough!
Mark Lacey

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