New framer desperate for advice!

[plankd]

Hi all,

I'm pretty much totally new to framing and am struggling to get the results I want when making the frame itself. I'm using a mitre trimmer/guillotine and an old Kimberley manual underpinner/mitre vice. The problem is that the mitres seem good and I can get the two pieces of moulding to fit tightly together in the underpinner/vice, but after I drive the wedges in and release the moulding there's always a hairline gap in the joint. It's been suggested that this may have something to do with the need to use the right wedges for soft or hard wood, and also that hard wood is generally difficult to work with, but I'm still struggling. The mitres seem good but maybe they're not perfect - maybe the trimmer is rolling the wood or something?

If anyone had any advice on how I can get past this problem I'd be hugely grateful.

Many thanks in advance.
David

[plankd]

Here's some photos of what I mean.

DSC05388.JPG (368.02 KiB) Viewed 8132 times

DSC05394.JPG (309.73 KiB) Viewed 8131 times

thanks
David

[easypopsgcf]

Move your front wedge much closer to the front (rebate), about 5mm in , are you using glue?......if not then pva wood glue is needed. Don't stress too much as i have seen much worse results from so called pro framers

[JohnMcafee]

Two observations:

The mitre looks to be a bit off – tight on the outside, but slightly open on the inside. This has been discussed many times here, a search of the forum will yield lots of good advice.

While the inner wedge is aligned correctly, the outer one is quite a bit off, the apex of the wedge does not lie on the join. Perhaps your underpinner can be adjusted to correct this.

[plankd]

Thanks guys. If anyone else has any advice, I'd be really grateful.

[Roboframer]

No-one's mentioned that the wedges have bashed great chunks out of one side of the mitre but not the other - not that I've got any explanation or cure, but I once had a (foot operated, strip fed) manual underpinner and it didn't like profiles like this much and it didn't like hardwoods at all!

Do you get the same problem on a wide, flat pine batten? It's always good to have something wide and flat around to calibrate your chopper/underpinner with, and if all's well with that, then sometimes you just have to write the problem moulding off as unfriendly to the machinery you have - and plenty of mouldings come under that category even with a Morso and a pneumatic underpinner. They'd proably be fine with a double (or even a single) mitre saw, and/or a mitre clamp and good old fashioned hammer and nails (which many framers still use, in addition to more modern equipment or not) but I, for one, don't want to know about those, I want to go 'chop chop chop' and 'thump-ptsssst thump-ptsssst' Wham-Bam-thank-you-Ma'am.

[plankd]

It's a good point. Mike Royall, who trained me, did suggest that hardwoods are trickier and so this is example is a soft wood. Very soft, I'd say, as it was splintering in the mitre guillotine and as you say the wedges have destroyed it round the back. Admittedly not all the wedges were like this. Thanks for the info about problem profiles, I had no idea. Should I just get some square profile pine beading from a DIY shop to practice with or should I be practicing on framing mouldings?

Many thanks
David

[prospero]

Hi David.

Maybe if there are any members within spitting distance they might be only too pleased to let you have a few of offcuts to practice on. I did this when I first started. Still got a few frames that I made from them.

If you care to venture to the far north you can have a carload of bits from my shed.

[Roboframer]

Should I just get some square profile pine beading from a DIY shop to practice with or should I be practicing on framing mouldings?

Doesn't matter as long as it's wide, flat and not too thick. If it's a frame moulding, cut it face down so you can eliminate rebate support as a problem.

[plankd]

I've done a lot of searching on the forum (and elsewhere) and the standard answer to anyone with problems like this seems to be 'buy a morso', 'buy a professional underpinner'. What do people think? When I was training with Mike, the axminster-style guillotine plus kimberley underpinner produced a perfectly good frame, yet having bought the same equipment myself, I'm having a nightmare trying to get an acceptable result, and I'm wondering if this is just inexperience, or whether upgrading to professional equipment would make all the difference, or perhaps that equally requires experience to get right. I'm really tearing my hair out about this - I want to get framing, but can't move on until I can at least get a decent-quality basic frame assembled. Do I need better equipment? Do I need to do more training? Is there anyone I can turn to in person for tips and/or experience? Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks again
David

[Roboframer]

It depends how far you want to take things. Imagine yourself sitting in front of yourself, asking yourself a favourite job-interview question "Where do you see yourself in 5 years from now"?

If you have an idea of a full-fledged framing business, starting from home or a small unit somewhere to test the water and then - if it's nice and warm - a shop or a bigger unit, then you may be wary of lashing out big money on the best equipment and buy hobbyist stuff instead, with the intent to upgrade if and when you become more successful.

It's exactly what I did.

I started by taking a course at a local college, I had no idea the tools were hobbyist/DIY - I thought framers used mitre boxes and tenon saws, vices and hammer & nails, stanley knives and straight edges for mounts, hand held glass cutters for glass - and that's what I was trained on.

The guy that ran the course could cut a perfect bevelled oval mount free-hand, after drawing it using a pencil, a piece of string and a couple of nails placed X far apart using a maths formula.

I couldn't do that, nor could I even cut a bevelled square aperture using a stanley knife and a straight edge like he did, and nor could I use a vice like he did (not a mitre vice -just a vice)! He'd put one leg in vertical and then he'd offer up a horizontal leg up so it overhung the vertical one and start to tap a brad in, and on the very last tap, the two legs matched up perfectly!

All I could do confidently after that course, was mitre a moulding, cut a piece of glass and do washlines. It was worth it just for the washlines!

So, I sought out a framing supplier, up-graded from a miter box and tenon saw to a Draper mitre saw - I thought that was the dog's! and lashed out on a foot-operated manual underpinner - a Euro - Prospero still uses one and look at him, (well, at his business, you wouldn't want to look at him)

Also lashed out on Maped mountcutter - just a straight edge with a cutting head that ran along grooves in it, you had to draw lines and judge over/undercuts by eye, got quite adept with it. The things I couldn't do were covered - bar the oval mounts - I just talked customers out of those!

Got quite busy, had converted half of our garage to a workshop - expanded; converted the whole garage! Bought a keencut ultimat. Then I bought a used Morso, well, my wife got it for my birthday! Wondered how I'd managed without either for so long.

Then a shop came up - went for it, but no room for a workshop - wife ran shop, I still worked from the garage, on call to the shop when it got busy.

Was still cutting glass and boards by hand, no room for a wall mounted cutter like the Keencut excalibur.

Got even busier!

Then a much larger (about 6 times larger) shop came up, about 100m away from ours but on the main drag - and with a workshop out back.

Went for it, bought the wall mounted board/glass cutter, and soon after, a pneumatic underpinner, which needed a compressor of course, so, soom after, bought a pneumatic tab gun. Wondered, in every case, how I'd managed without.

In hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, we could, and maybe should, have bought most all of the equipment up to this point to start with and found more suitable premises than our rent and rate free garage - trusted our instincts and our market research. If we had then we could have concentrated on the road ahead more than the foot pedals and the gear levers.

Even when we upgraded to a CMC 18 months ago, we wished we'd done it as soon as we had the room for it instead of it being some kind of 'reward'

Just do it! Bite the bullet, many items of pro equipment bought new come with training and after-sales support and many bought used can be sold for pretty much what you paid if things don't work out.

Regards training (and all the above was not to build up to this, I just got a bit carried away - devil of a keyboard)! - click on the directory to the left. Under 'tuition' you'll find me - I think I'm pretty unique in offering fly-on-the-wall training in a live environment.

[Gesso&Bole]

As Robo says above. There are two schools of thought. One is to struggle along with inadequate machinery, and gradually build up to where you want to be, and the other is to decide where you want to be and invest in the gear to work at that level.

You will find plenty of people who will recommend both approaches. It depends on your personality, and your confidence in your own business ability.

If you were setting up a Fish and Chip shop you would be ill advised to try and do it with a domestic deep fat fryer "until you get busy enough" to warrant professional equipment. But that is exactly what a lot of would be framers try to do, and then wonder why they never get busy enough.

My advice would be to decide where you want to be. Write a business plan. Invest what you need to in order to bring that plan into reality (not just equipment, but training too) and if necessary get some help.

[plankd]

Thanks so much for the advice. My plan is exactly as Robo describes - do some framing from my spare room and if it gains traction, invest in better kit, premises etc. I can see the argument for 'doing it properly' but not sure finances, etc. will permit at present.

thanks again,
David

[Tim]

Robo....do you mind me asking - what was the timeframe from enrolling at the local college to moving in to the larger shop?

[Roboframer]

7 years, I was still in the army when I took the college course as a pre-release course, that and two calligraphy courses - I'd taught myself calligraphy from books over quite a few years; was a member of the Society of Scribes & Illuminators - thought I could make a living from it and framing it.

That was '93, had a 'proper' job for the next 4 years doing framing (and some calligraphy) from home in the evenings/weekends. But eventually I had two full time jobs and something had to go! The 'proper' job went when the first shop came up in '97 - it was a wool/needlecraft shop and as we were getting so much needlework to frame we thought needlecraft would be a good sideline. We dropped the wool (all but), added the framing and ran out of space rapidly - our present place came up in 2000 and we fought off Lloyds Pharmacy for the lease!

Needlework is a bit more than a sideline now though! http://www.angmeringframing.com/needlecraft

[sim.on]

If you're just starting out has it got to be wood? With the gear you've got you can get perfect results in Polymer (Mainline Mouldings). Superglue the corners together first then underpin the completed frame a few minutes later. I'm in Herts, you're welcome to pick up some free (shortish) lengths of Polymer (and wood) to practice on if wanted. BTW in case you're unaware you can fine tune the 45 degree angle stops on the trimmer.
Simon