oak moulding arrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

[muffinski]

Shoot me now and put me out of my misery, what is it with oak moulding?! I give up , Arcadia Wessex, Lion, I have tried oak with all of them and it is always unfit for purpose most of the time. Yes they replace refund etc but the process is getting tedious and a waste of time, plus I have to delay customer’s job. Is it just me? Do other people struggle with basic oak moulding?

Examples of what I am ordering are
Wessex; pw35 pw189
Arqadia 113200000

Anyone getting good consistent lengths fit for use from somewhere?

Rant over

[David McCormack]

I hear what you're saying. It is frustrating when you find flaws/damage in the lengths or the colour changes in the same length but hey it is a natural product I've just got in the habit of ordering much more than I need.... I do have a log stove in my workshop

I order mostly from Rose & Hollis, which to be fair sell a good product and at a better price than others.

[muffinski]

thanks David might give them a go. Main issue is how bent it is (several directions!), spoke with a joiner, who provided his own oak moulding for me to use on his piece, said about the various grades available, I think that has a lot to do with quality as well as it being a natural product.

[Tudor Rose]

Oak is one of those mouldings that does seem to cause issue. We use the same one from Arqadia and also have a lot of wastage on it so, like David does we allow for that when we order. We also buy a fair amount of our oak from Rose and Hollis, but also some of the D&J Simons oak has been good too. Mind you, we do always remember to ask for it to be checked before sending and for it to be as straight as possible.

[prospero]

I had a guy in yesterday who is set on getting some stuff framed using oak from a beam in his (old) house.
he is getting someone to slice it up into 60mm sq bits. Sounds like a cool idea.

He has some items that need mounting/stretching, which I have undertaken to do.

I mentioned that although I would be more than pleased to chop up his oak into frames, there are
certain things that need to be established before I could give him a quote.....

For a start the timber needs a rebate. Something he had not considered.


But the main thing is that the timber may have warped and/or twisted after being cut. His view was that if the
beam had been sitting happily in the house for 250 years it should be no problem. My view was somewhat different.

We will see what we will see.

[Jamesnkr]

That's what tray frames are for!

[IFGL]

We use tons of oak, 100's of meters in fact, we too had issues with Quality, the best suppliers we have found with the most consistent product is D and J Simon's and Centrado, both do a very good price too.

[Not your average framer]

Oak is a good seller in my shop. Unfortunately wastage is one of those inconvenient facts of life and there's not a lot you can do about it, but every now and then, I make up a batch of ready made frames using the various left over scraps. You can hide problems with the grain, or colour not matching, by lime washing, or painted and distressed finishes.

More recently, I've been doing oak driftwood using a rotary wire brush and a angle grinder. Although this has been successful, I am planning upon making a contraption with a wider rotary wire brush and a built in power drill. Driftwood made from oak is very popular with my customers and ready made frames using oak driftwood sell out of the shop window in no time at all.

[prospero]

It's wise to put a bit of a premium on solid oak mouldings - purely to account for the excess wastage incurred
if making 'clean' frames. You do sometimes have to match up rails and cut around gnarly bits.

But nil desperandum. Save the iffy bits and do what Mark does. Make them into ready mades and knock them about
a bit. Quick waxing and buff with a yellow duster and you have a thing of beauty. I like old oak frames that people bring
in. Unlike old gilded/painted frames even severe dings don't detract from the appeal. They generally have gaps in the corners.
No problem. As long as they are fundamentally sound gaps present no terrors. Again, a quick wax'n'buff and the results are amazing.

[Jamesnkr]

I love old oak mouldings and never throw them away if I reframe something.

Generally though I don't like unfinished wood (nor factory-finished mouldings) as you can't hide the inevitable dings that come with humping pictures about.

[muffinski]

I had a guy in yesterday who is set on getting some stuff framed using oak from a beam in his (old) house.
he is getting someone to slice it up into 60mm sq bits. Sounds like a cool idea

keep us posted Peter sounds interesting.

[prospero]

Well..... I drew him a diagram of how the rebate should be cut. I made it 12mm wide as the glazed frames
will need a spacer. Told him to save the waste bit to make the spacers with. I hope his woodwork chappy
saws the rebate out rather than mills it.
As luck would have it, flipping the moulding 90º so the top is the side and the rebate on the back will allow
me to neatly insert a shelf of any old wood to make tray frames for his canvases. The canvases are quite large.
In the order of 5ft long so I did warn him that if they ever need re-tensioning then they won't fit back in the frames.
He wants them snug with minimal gap. I did manage to persuade him that his delicate pieces of Japanese
calligraphy need glass over them. And float mounting, rather than sticking to a bit of plywood as was his original want.

It was one of those jobs where the customer had it all figured out and whatever they had figured out was entirely bonkers.

Just hoping the moulding arrives not looking like a a bunch of bananas.

[red]

although I'm not very experienced in picture framing I know from working with oak
, it moves.I remember woodturning even when
it was thought to be dry it would move out of shape after turned.
if it was green wood it would often end up an oval shape.some woods are
unstable when worked. there is probably a list out there. ash is
a lovely wood, nice grain and stable
try working with eucalyptus wood though!