[Merged] Fixing backboard when flush with moulding

[Graysalchemy]

No one has stated the obvious, choose a moulding which has a deep enough rebate. I know that customer is always right and all that but if you point it it to begin with then you can hopefully get the customer to chose something different.

[prospero]

Rebate depth has been a bone of contention in the trade for .... well always.

Most narrow mouldings are about 8mm depth or less. Ok if you just want a single mount and omit the undermount. A double mount + undermount + glass + backboard needs about 12mm ideally. 10mm if you shoehorn it in. How many mouldings 3/4" or less have this depth? Not a lot. When it comes to needlework or filleted mounts, you need a great deal more. Some I have seen are just plain ridiculous. I had a nice German moudling once. Soft pewter, about 1/2" wide. Beautiful finish. It was about £2.50 a foot at the time compared with about 30p for similar profiled typical Italian stuff. But the rebate was about 6mm. This made it very limiting.

It's all to do with the planks the raw timber comes in. Going on to the next thickness to gain an extra 3mm or so would make the moulding much more expensive. fact is, a lot of mouldings are made to a price and aimed at the bottom end of the market where you would have a stamped out paper 'mount' and a cheap print + thin card back. Or the ready made photoframe trade.

OK, you can build up the back with a strip of PSE timber, but on narrow mouldings it's just not practical. Then there is the extra time involved.

So the moral is, stock mouldings that are physically suitable for the type of work you do. And when you get a rep with a case full of samples, look carefully at the rebates.

[AllFramed]

Take your point Alchemist. I actually used MDF and the Lion Trymblock. Worked a treat. Don't normally use MDF now but it will remain as a solution should this happen again.

Cheers, Tim.

[Ricky]

I've just sent 50 meteres of moulding back to a supplier,
I'd called them to ask what the rebate was and was told they didnt have that information
which I thought was strange,
I was told to measure the picture in the Catalogue as it was life size,
I did, It Wasn't
I measured 8mm it was 5mm
So back it went.

[Not your average framer]

The first reply to this thread by Roboframer is a solution which often can work reasonably well. Obviously it would be nice if there was another way, but sometimes life does not work like that.

I first discovered the above mentioned method on some framed prints I bought in an auction. I did not pay much attention at the time, but since then I have sometimes needed to resort to this method myself.

It's not exactly the text book way of doing things, but it works better than you might be thinking.