New Member who needs guidance

Say hello, and tell us a little about yourself.
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joebalanda
Posts: 32
Joined: Thu 25 Feb, 2016 8:14 pm
Location: Isle Of Man
Organisation: The Canvas Art Studio
Interests: art, photography tech. The rest of my time is taken up with my kids!

New Member who needs guidance

Post by joebalanda »

Hi Everyone,
I would just like to introduce myself to the forum. My wife and I own and run The Canvas Art Studio on the Isle Of Man. Which we have had for 2 years now. We produce premium quality canvas wall art from either our own portfolios or customers own images. We made a firm decision from the start not to use cheap nasty materials like some of the larger companies on the internet and 1 on the Island.

In my past life I was a carpenter and ran my own company for over 35 years, until a serious accident and illness put a full stop on this. I would like to think that I am pretty good with my hands. My wife was a retail manager for a large company for a number of years, so working together just kind of works ( who would ever think that working with my wife would actually be good!) We are both keen artists and I also dabble with my photography. We try to promote local artists and photographers young and old on the Island as well.

When We set up our studio, I equipped The retail floor to a modern contemporary standard that we think works for us. Our actual engine room downstairs was fitted out to a high standard as well with a lot of thought for what we were going to do. We started out with one second hand HP Z6100 printer 2 years ago, since then, through a lot of sweat and tears we have managed to upgrade to 3 top end printers. A brand new dedicated 12 ink HP Z3300 photographic printer, A 42" & 60" HPZ6200 canvas/graphic printers. We also have a website, with a new updated one on the way. We have built a solid reputation for the quality of our work and service. Our roles have reversed though! I take care of all the retail side and image prep etc... Customers can sit down with me and I enjoy the personal service we provide. This has paid huge dividends with our reputation, especially with my wife's great skill at canvas stretching.

We noticed right from the start that even though there are quite a few picture framers on the Island, that our customers kept asking us why we just didn't offer picture framing. especially the local photographic society, whom we already have a working relationship with. The opportunity arose for us to purchase some equipment from a friend in the business who was retiring, so we thought hard and made the decision to buy some of this. ( Another sort out in the engine room and we are about set to go)

Now I have the utmost respect for all your skills in the art of picture framing, but after many years as a carpenter I think I may have a small grasp of working with timber and machinery, albeit NOT picture framing.
We don't anticipate on doing great volumes of work in this area, but I have always personally thought that if you are going to do a job, then It should be right. Now we just can't afford to spend thousands and thousands On machines that I would really like, but we have 2 huge benches downstairs + the photographic printer ( I need to be careful with dust here as well)
Equipment we have:
2 x dewalt radial arm saws
M4 undrpinner
compressor
staple guns
2 x paslode finishing nailers
1 x paslode framing nailer
2x tab guns
3 x dahl (1200, 800 & A3 cutters
1 x Logan elite full sheet size mount cutter ( we would love a wall mounted one but just don't have the room or money for this) Advice on this would be very helpful!

TESTING THE WATER
We have opened accounts with Lion & Wessex Picture framing and even Trade picture frames for some ready made frames. However we want to keep to the high end of the market as we do with our canvas & photographic artwork. We have ordered and used " Lion's cut service" a few times for our shadow box frames and our customers and ourselves are happy with the results. We have also used Wessex & Lion for the high end Ali frames that we think are very good. We think our best way forward at this time is to go down the cut service route, We have a selection of different chevrons/mount chevrons from both as well as their respective catalogues, but where the hell do we stop! we just can't carry full lengths due to our dust issues even with extraction! Maybe we are wrong? would we be better with a bench guillotine? or stick to the cut services? I personally love working with wood as I have done all my working life!

PRICING
Where the hell do I start. It's a nightmare. If you give me a set of plans for a house, then no problem, but I am confused about all the different "programs" do we need one? can we afford one? How do I price up stuff manually. Does anyone use a formula, as we do with our canvas and photos?

HELP NEEDED!
If anyone can advise and help us we would be eternally grateful. We are not "playing" here we have put everything into our business and are serious about making this side of it work, not just by being good at it but better, We want to produce quality workmanship and we need some help and guidance.

MAIN POINTS OF HELP
Pricing structures, equipment, experience, tips and just about ANYTHING you may think that will be useful to us. This is probably the most I have written for a very long time, but I thought it would be good to tell you all who we are and where we are at.
You can contact me here, through our website: ( http://www.thecanvasartstudio.co.uk ) by our freephone number - 08081234511 - Studio: 01624679738 - Mobile: 07624476867

We really look forward to hearing from you.
FOOTNOTE
There are NO HP engineers on the Island so we have had to learn about wide format printing the hard way. If anyone needs help in this area or with photoshop, then please get in touch.

Many, many thanks,
J &L
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Roboframer

Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by Roboframer »

Welcome to the forum - that was some intro!

I think your best bet is to get some paid-for hands on with a framer offering training because there's just too many questions there and if every question was answered by, say, 20 different forum members - which isn't going to happen - you'd get 20 totally different answers/opinions and if any single person wanted to answer all the points in full they'd either be mad or not know what the proverbial they're on about.
Graysalchemy

Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by Graysalchemy »

There are a lot of questions there perhaps many you should have asked before you started.

Everyone's pricing is diferent but you will certainly need to take into account all your overheads and also a living wage for yourself regardless of whether this is not you'd main income, as you may wish to sell the business in years to come and if it isn't profitable then no one will want to take it on.

Equipment wise though your saws may be accurate enough for canvas stretchers they won't be accurate enough for finished moulding. A morso would be your best friend and will be better dust wise in a confined space.

Great looking set up and what a lovely place to live many happy memories of field trips in my youth staying in Port Erin.
joebalanda
Posts: 32
Joined: Thu 25 Feb, 2016 8:14 pm
Location: Isle Of Man
Organisation: The Canvas Art Studio
Interests: art, photography tech. The rest of my time is taken up with my kids!

Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by joebalanda »

Thank you both for getting back to me. The island is a nice place to live and thank you for your comments on the studio. I know it's not going to be easy. I may be able to get they guy who has retired to come in for a few days. A morso would be good but the workshop has limited space. As regards to my mitre saws, a 60tooth per Sq in Ali cutting blade will give a mirror finish to timber, but as we mentioned, dust!

The Canvas/photo side of the business was pretty simple to set up in the usual way.albeit with a lot of work. I created a sliding formula taking into account every single overhead and then created tables as reference. This actually works suprisingly well.
The obvious problem with the framing is that there are just too many price variations for materials to do the samended thing.

I was just wondering if there are some basic cardinal rules that I need to be aware of, any tips on specific kit etc. Good suppliers for materials, including glass, which a lot of companies just won't deliver here. Just guidance in general about what should be done or avoided.
Again, than you for your feedback. I look forward to any more advice
Kr
Joe
Graysalchemy

Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by Graysalchemy »

The problem with the saw is not the blade and the cut but the accuracy of the angle the tolerance needed for joinery work is not as great as for picture framing and any saw designed with an adjustable angle is liable to move and wear. A morso is the tool for the job. A morso will probably take up less space as two saws permanently set up and have the advantage of easy measuring and no dust, though a saw as you have suggested will have a better cut. My cassese double mitre saw uses 12" blades with about 100 teeth I think, though the cutcut as you know is only as good as the sharpness of the blades. Dust is a problem with these machines so much so I have had to buy a very large industrial 3 phase extractor.

Pricing is best using a pricing program. Some use a basic markup and wastage factors ( I use about 29-30% for sheet materials and about 15 for moulding) others take into account materials wastage and a labour charge, these tend to give a more representative price based on time involved. This is or baby the best way to price as a cheap moulding will have just as much of a labour cost as an expensive is one and a small frame takes just as long to cut and joint as a large one.
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Keith Hewitt
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Location: BOLLINGTON - Macclesfield England
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Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by Keith Hewitt »

A comment - its fascinates me how much framers in Europe ( and we are still in Europe ☺) vary in their choice of chopper or saw. I undertsand in Belgium there are hardly any choppers, nearly 100% saws. Similar in Germany. But go to Norway and its just like UK mostly Morso's. In Denmark the most popular mount colours are only sold in size 100 x 140 cm. :?: :o The reason why is far too long and complicated for a Monday morning :lol:
Keith Hewitt
I have visited distributors and framers in 90 countries - no two are the same.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XtrrWooYdg
Jamesnkr

Re: New Member who needs guidance

Post by Jamesnkr »

You can either spend a long time faffing about, or go for some proper training for a day or two.

I run a low-volume part-time framing activity (as an art dealer, maybe 200 frames a year (I've never counted), all hand-finished so no off-the shelf finished mouldings). Otherwise I've been through a vaguely similar process to the one you intend over the last couple of years. Get rid of those saws and get a Morso. It will give you spot-on 45 degree mitres and produce no dust. Mine sits in my larder and does not create dust that irritates. Get rid of the Logan and buy a proper mount cutter, either a Fletcher or a Keencut, the Logan won't give you straight enough lines (I had one for two months; any mounts I cut with it I have had to recut since). You don't *need* a wall-mounted material cutter, but it will give you much better results from the mount cutter as you will be working with 90 degree angles. It will also cut you your glass.

Pricing. There are lots of complicated ways to do this, but all they are doing is a similar thing, and they're only as good as the information you put into them. You need to work out how much profit (strictly "contribution to fixed costs") you need to make per hour. Probably somewhere in the region of £50; it seems to be roughly that for most framers here.

To compute the price of a frame, take the time it takes you at your hourly rate, and then take the material costs and apply a multiplication factor of probably somewhere between one and two. Add the two items together, and there you are. Just the same as building the timber frame for a house!

Oh yes, and when it comes to material costs, don't forget waste. For example if you need 3.5m of moulding, and it comes in 3m lengths, then you need to charge for 2 lengths as the rest is waste (for all you may eventually be able to use it).
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