What equipment to buy

[Mike1]

Hi, I'm new and learning how to cut mounts and frame from a chance meeting with a framer who framed some certificates for me and has offered to teach me. My question is having acquired a logan 450 mount cutter what is the best equipment to buy for mitres and underpinning.
Do I look at the stuff for hobbyists or hang out for the more serious gear? My intention is to essentially frame for myself maybe friends and see how that goes.
My concern about the hobby kit ie logan underpinner , mitre saw and guillotine is that it will do a poor job and I will be disillusioned .

Any help appreciated , I don't have a set budget so money not critical but neither do I have enough to waste!
Thanks

[prospero]

Hi and Welcome Mike.

For cutting mitres, the ubiquitous Morso chopper is the most widely used by far. Not a cheap piece of kit - a new one will not see much change out of £2k. But used ones are worth buying. They are extremely tough machines and as long as they haven't been seriously abused, even a 50 year old one will still perform as good as new. I got mine about 1985 and it has has had practically daily use since. Still cuts a treat. For this reason they hold their value well. A decent used example runs at around £6-800. If you can get sets of spare blades in the deal then all the better. The Morso will make short work of maybe 90% of mouldings. Some are a bit problematic for the Morso to cut though. Ones with 'undercuts' on the profile and ones with a hard coating which dulls the blades. Wider mouldings (3"+) are better cut on a power saw, purely for speed really. But saws are noisy, dusty and proper framing saws run to £1000's.

For joining, an underpinner is the thing. Quick and not external nail holes to fill. No reason not to do it the old school way with hammer and nails. You need a good mitre vice such as the Stanley ones (which are freely available) and a band clamp is handy as it clamps all four corners at once. framer's of old sometimes used spring clamps such as the Ulmia. You can still get these - about £150 a set. They do make dents in the outside of the frame, but these can be filled in when you fill the nail holes. All frames prior to about 1980 or so were nailed. Nailing reasonable-sized mouldings is easy enough, but doing narrow ones is more tricky. This is where the underpinner scores.
Underpinners are quite delicate machines, so buying used ones can be a bit more risky. Try before you buy. Also try to avoid buying a used one that is no longer manufactured as spares can be a problem. They come in various complexities from basic to semi-automated with a lot of bells and whistles. Manual ones do just as good a job as air-powered ones. A lot depends on the volume of work you do and the type of moulding.

If you are serious about producing good frames, even on an amateur level then buy good equipment from the start. You can easily waste 100s of £££s on hobby gear. Remember, moulding is the same price whatever you cut it on and it wouldn't take long to ruin the cost of a Morso in spoilt moulding.

Hope that's some help.

[Mike1]

Thank you , yes that's enormous help and in the direction of what I am thinking, I have some way to go and for now am buying ready made to perfect the mount cutting and presentation not wanting to run b4 I can walk
I won't go down the hobby route and will buy a new underpinner as u suggested . I see the logan is not in the same class as aro job but seems to get the job done with no fuss at least in quantities I do
Thanks again