Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

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Not your average framer
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Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

It may come as a bit of a surprise to some, but wider mouldings not not always necessarily mean more cost to framers, but if you shop around there are some wider moulding, where the cost is quite reasonable. Prospero once told me on this forum that "nothing suceeds like excess", I guess there might have be a little bit of humour in that remark as well, but I did take notice and it has become one my guiding principles, which I find helpful to follow. mouldings with generous proportions are often a factor in customers choosing mouldings, if the price is not too excessive. I like to pick different mouldings, in different sizes and prices. Lets say that you have three different options which a customer is considering, not everyone will do this, but if the price jumps between the different mouldings are reasonably affordable many customers will choose the middle priced and middle sized moulding. It's probably becase they are thinking that the cheapest one is always the inferior product and for a little extra, they are thinking that they are getting something better. I have found that you take away the cheaper option and the customers are not so sure about what they want.

Having display samples of the cheaper one, just seen to help you sell more, of the middle priced one. When I look in suppliers range of moulding, there are alway those where a bigger moulding is often a better price and when presented as as a bigger and better version of something else often will justify a better customer price. The secret is to make that price jump to be something which they are thinking that might be worth paying the extra for. I've been doing this for quite a while now and It does seem to work quite well. I also am particularly on the look out for moulding with deeper side profiles, these tend to give the imressions of superior quality and this is also quite a big deal with my interior designer friends, who see this as a major distingishing factory from the cheaper mass produced frames which are much more cheaply made. I seems to be pretty well accepted that a recession is developing and we all will find creating a little profit where we can a useful thing. Whether we like it, or not the coming times may to some extent translate in to a few changes in what we may choose to offer as time goes on, but we can choose how we do this to our advantage.
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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Re: Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

Post by prospero »

My 'magic' moulding is R&H A24. It is 2 ¾" wide. It looks good on small frames and BIG frames. It has a flat outer
edge which gives it a 'contemporary' feel while not being plain. I've used lots of it. :D

Another is A168 which is 3 ¾" and looks very generous and 'classical'.
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: Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

Yes, I like A168 as well, I usualy stack it together with other moulding to make an even wider moulding another Rose and Holis mould which I like is A249, but I don't like the thin edge at the front face, so I cut this back and by doing so, that front edge gets wider and to me this makes it look much nicer! A249 is not an expensive moulding, but looks quite modern and stylish when used with the right subject matter.
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: Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

Simons do a very similar moulding to the Rose and hollis A24. I don't use it very much, but it is one of those useful moulding for slicing up in to bits and pieces for me to produce stacked moulding frames. I can also use the piece with the rebate to make a quite nice modern looking narrow moulding as well. I don't really like spending too much time filling in gaps between on piece of one moulding and another, having a surface planner table can be very useful when making sure the everything fits nicely together without gaps that need lots of filling and sanding. I am a big fan of the old fashioned idea of larger mouldings having quirks, where moulding joins used to be hidden in the corner of a quirk and the glue line could not be seen, because of where it was. Diliberately placed transitions in moulding shapes, make it so easy to have where one piece is joined to another.

Unfortunately it not so easy on the outside endge of a moulding when trying to increase the depth when trying to glue something on to the rear of the moulding. Approgression of outward narrow, but roulding steps, can look seriously convincing having said all that and in general nobody seems to notice that you have added anything on to the rear of the main moulding. I have inherited a quality of 5mm thick machined pine slates in my out building, which were left behind by a previous tenant and I have been thinking that these could be cut up in to different widths to be stacked flush with the rebate in the main moulding and produce a nniced stepped shape to the moulding outside edge. This sort of shape was quite popular at one time and I was planning to buy a Simons moulding at one time which was like this, but I was pretty skint and the time and by the time I had some money to spare it had been discontinued.

I had always been interested in this particular moulding, as it was ideal for stacking around the outside edge of flat moulding to create a look similar to what was often seen on many itailian hand finished mouldings. I bought a whole bo full of Italian moulding samples for Renaisance Mouldings which I had assumed would sell to up market customers and it never happened. Unfortunately Renaisance Mouldings have long gone and styles have changed and I have definitely missed the boat. I am still thinking about ideas for basic home grown stacked moulding stull, but even the market for stacked moulding is becoming less easy as basic mouldings cost are become more expensive. I used to have so many ideas for what I wanted to do at one time, but quite dramatic recent price increases has changed things so much, that I am looking at doing much more basic stacked moulding ideas instead.
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: Nice wide well proportioned mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

I am guessing that you and I are quite well set with our large stocks of older mouldings to be able to continue without spending huge amounts of money to keep on picture framing for a while, as long as we can find customers with the cash to spend on framing, but I am expecting to need to adapt to new market needs and conditions. I quite amazed that other framers cannot currently obtain any worthwhile gold mouldings from Larson Jhul and I wonder what things may be like as time goes on. I don't personally believe that there is going to be much of a market, where people can save money by going instead to the Range, or Ikea.

So our strategy probably needs to be to compete as best as we can in what ever remains of the rest of the market and we are not necessarily particularly all that sure what the rest of the market is going to look like as time goes on. Having a strategy which enables us to tempt customers, to upgrade to something a bit nicer for an affordable amount of extra money could be a helpful thing as far as I can see and I've already been doing this a bit for a while. As long as I can afford the electricity, I can convert some of my old stock in to useful, interesting and hopefully saleable product, if I can find the customers.

I get the impression that things may be a quite different picture by the end of this financial year and I'm trying to plan for a whole range of possible outcomes. Truthfully, I don't have much idea of what to expect as time goes on.
Mark Lacey

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