Fake Oak mouldings.

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Not your average framer
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Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

I used to sell quite a lot of real oak frames, but increasing prices for bare oak mouldings has tended to cause me problems with this. A lot of this was largely driven by regular orders for oak frames by a very long term trade customer, who I produced 16 inch x 12 inch frames for. Unfortunately, recently prices increased prices to me have pushed up my prices to him beyond what makes sense for him. Most of my other oak frames were produced from the off cuts, which were left over from producing his frames, So losing my main customer has effectively ended my supply of oak off cuts and things have to change.

By I think that there still is a market for fake oak frames for me. As I won't be able to say that these are real oak frames, I anticipate that the sales volume will be reduced, but I hope to still sell a useful volume of these frames. Fortunately Rose and Hollis also make this same moulding in obeche as well and lightly brushed obeche produces a very believeable fake oak quite easily. I lightly brush the pieces of obeche with a bronze bristle brush I am not looking for an obvious brushed effect, it only needs a very light effect to make an effect which looks right, when it's painted and waxed.

I have a large size tub of tan coloured gouashe. It's the largest size they do, but it's only 200ml. I use gouashe, because it needs to be reasonably opaque, but I thin it down to apply it. It needs to be applied in thin coats acting like a wood stain and is then waxed with sealed with a mixed of the same colour gouashe and wax. Obviously water based paints don't normally mix with wax, but the wax is quite thick and the paint is just stirred in to the wax. I use a slightly darker Black Bison paste wax and wipe away the surplus.

Any slight gap in the corners disappear as they are filled with the surplus wax and a little bit of heat from a heat gun sets the wax. All in all, it looks reasonably like real oak to most people, but those who work with real oak can probably tell the difference!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by JFeig »

"Unfortunately, recently prices increased prices to me have pushed up my prices to him beyond what makes sense for him."

Mark, You are making his problem your problem. Ask him where you can get Petro for less than £1.00 per liter.

Jerry
Jerome Feig CPF®
http://www.minoxy.com
Not your average framer
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Jerome,

I was already expecting it added my mark up to his mark up just came to too much. He is a famous Dartmoor photographer and his primary sales item is his mounted photography, selling frames to his customers was already hard work and I was forced to put up my prices to him too much and both of us had nowhere to go on prices. He has been a regular trade customer ever since I opened my original shop, which was about 18 to 20 years ago. I'm not complaining he has bought 50 to 80 frames a year for most of this time, so that has been a useful level of business for quite a long time. Any left overs, which were not long enough to be used on more frames for his size of frames always got used to produce other sizes of oak frames which I priced and displayed in my shop windows for sale.

They were one of my best selling items for a really long time, but alas no more now my supply of left overs is gone. I guess all good things come to an end one day! I still have some left overs to use up and produce a few more frames, but given the fact that these particular oak moulding have almost doubled in cost price, it's time to do something else. I'm doing quite a bit of re-thinking right now as many of my favorite stock mouldings have been discontinued, during these times with suppliers reducing what they are still going to have in their inventory.

I have always produced a lot of stacked moulding frames, using smaller low cost mouldings with a bit of interesting shape about them. Lots of these have been discontinued and are now a thing of the past and there's not much that I can do about it. I am now cutting up other larger mouldings to create other bits and pieces which work well when stacked together. Even this is a temporary fix as I am just cutting up old stock. Business levels won't be the same as before, so I will probably get hit both ways. I am not expecting to have the same level of market for oak frames at the current up to date prices.
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: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

The flecks in the obeche, together with a lightly brushed finish and the tan gouashe and the wax are surprisingly realistic looking. You can see that it is a fake oak finish if you look hard enough, but as fake oak finishes go it a pretty good one! I've tried oak finishes on pine, but it always looks like pne which has been stained to look like oak. and you still know this it is pine. Obeche makes a much more convincing fake oak.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by prospero »

Most people wouldn't know oak if it bit them. There are lots of 'oak' items for sale on E-Bay, etc that are advertised as solid oak
when in reality are pine. What they mean is oak coloured. It's very hard to fake oak to the extent where a woodworker would be fooled.

You can get a nice 'oakey' looking finish by building up a flat coat of 50/50 Yellow Ochre/Raw Umber with a dab of white. When this is dry
drag over a diluted wash of 50/50 RawUmber/Burnt Umber. Flood it on fast and then drag it with a dry, slightly knackered natural bristle
brush as it dries. Fortuitously, the best brushes for this job are the cheap-as-chips pound shop disposable ones. Doing it in the length prior to joining
is maybe preferable as doing the corners can be tricky. Wax'n'buff. Bingo. This gives a very subdued mellow look. A dusting of Rottenstone
adds to the look. :D
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

I think that we are both on a very similar wavelength with this. For me pine is quite difficult to be made to look like much else, without completely obscuring toe pine grain, but narrow straight grain pine such as you get from quarter sawn pine is much easier the pass of as something better than pine, but pine does not easily pass for oak no matter what you do. Sometimes a knot free nice looking piece of pine can show through paint in much the same way that ash sometimes does, but I only think that it works like that, because the grain of the pine was not unlike oak in this particular case. It's my experience that when I buy in a large batch of pine mouldings, only a very small percentage of the pine will have a particularly attractive grain at all. In most cases, I find it best to supress and hide the grain by using an opaque pigment in the finish. I very often mix some chalky emulsion with a similar shade of acrylic paint to render the acrylic paint sufficiently opaque to not be able to see the pine woodgrain clearly enough to know that it is pine.

Until quite recently pine has been the moulding type which I have bought the most of. Part of this has been due to having a lot of pine enables me to pick a choose the nicer looks pieces, so that I can produce some better looking frames. What's left over is really not that special and needs to be used for items that are not that important, such as my rustic pine frames which are not really meant to look all that perfect, or my rotary wire brushed driftwood style frames. I also make a few ready made frames from cheap pine as well and usually manage to hide the visiblity of any wood grain fairly well on the ready made frames. Obviously pine works well for spacers and fillets which don't need to be used in a normally visible position. I always considered pin as a very useful and nice cheap wood, but it's not very cheap anymore, which has kind of change the game quite a bit of late. I also do quite well with my own style of vintage pine frames, which look quite classy, but only because I do them in the mission finish so popular on American antique furniture.
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: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Oak stained mouldings have not become unpopular like so many other brown stained mouldings, niether has the mission finish colour which is so popular on American antique furniture, it's sort of quite warm golden brow to toffee brown and it looks very classy. Washed pinky brown mahogany seems to work quite well, as it seems to have escaped the modern day rejection of the usually dark brown mouldings. The difficulty seems to be finding stain colours which are not your typical dark brown and are still considered to be quite classy today.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by vintage frames »

I can't help feeling you're missing a trick there, Mark.

You say you're not prepared to buy real oak mouldings and instead want to spend your valuable and most profitable time bent over a work table roughing up some obeche and sweating on some contrived concoction to somehow simulate oak.
And you're then prepared to admit it doesn't really look all that great anyway.

Here's my point -

Take a random moulding from R&H. SW2724. The oak version is 50p/ft more expensive than the obeche.
On an average 6ft frame, that's £3 more for the wood but now you have the real thing.
And here's where it matters.
You have years of experience with antiques and old frames. Wouldn't it be better to up-sell the oak with a beautiful wood finish instead of time spent passing off a cheap ersatz copy.
To be successful at wood finishing requires 20% skill and 80% knowledge of the 'look'. You should have that 80% by now.
Maybe move away from those hobby household paints and poly-rubbish finishes and buy from -

https://www.jpennyltd.co.uk/Home.php and
https://finneyswoodfinishes.co.uk/index.php

Both these companies have everything you need to go well up-market with your finishes.

I bet you won't though . .
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Not your average framer
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi dermot,

I appreciate what you are saying, but I am still getting my shop back on it feet, ready to re-open and I am still quite tight on my finances. I am not really sure that after not having my shop open since the start of 2019 that I have enough financial resources to come back all gun blazing at this time. I unfortunately need to re-start my shop quite carefully at this stage and let things build up at a rate which I am capable of seeing it work. My wife is still recovering from her stroke and I still need to look after her and open my shop at the same time.

I need to re-stock my stop and initially this is going to be a struggle to find the necessary finances. Sadly I don't think that I have much of a market for a worthwhile amount of oak frames at the moment. This winter might be a very difficult one economically and I am finding it hard to get myself and the shop sorted right now., but I need to have things to sell when I re-open. I am still having problems getting to grips with today increased prices and how to manage re-stock my shop.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by vintage frames »

OK, so you're starting at the very bottom. At least business can't get any worse.

Why not just open the shop. Sod the re-stocking. Forget about walls of chevrons - it's only wallpaper- nobody cares.

Stick a black-board in the window. Chalk up the message - Picture Framing, Now Open.

Brush the floor a bit and see who comes in.

You'll soon get the hang of it all again.
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Not your average framer
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

I hope so!

Thanks Dermot,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Justintime »

IF you are serious about reopening Mark, the first thing I would do is update your Google listing to show your current premises, its correct location on the map, some of your work, opening hours etc etc.
I have most of my new customers coming to me through a Google search. If you do a search, you'll see that the photos show a recent image of your old shop with the windows screened off.
Justin George GCF(APF)
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Re: Fake Oak mouldings.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Dermot,

You will be pleased to hear that I'm planning to buy some more oak mouldings when I get around to ordering again from Rose and Hollis and making a few oak frames again. I have an ulterior motive as well, as I want to make some oak sliding dovetail guides for and overhead sliding router carriage for a three dimentioal router jig and will need some pieces of oak to do this. As usual it's more boys toy again.
Mark Lacey

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