On The Topic of Photographs

[SquareFrames]

Hi folks,

Just thought I'd share this wee ditty with you.

Yesterday, I had the misfortune of having to replace a piece of glass in a 27 year old frame. Not difficult I hear you all say, and neither it was to be honest.

The frame was 1125mm X 180mm, (41 1/4 x 7 1/8 in old money) an old school photograph. The problem arose when taking it apart. I will list all the problems below:

1. The photograph had been placed directly behind the glass, no notion of drymounting, glueing it down, etc. so it looked like small waves, or a bad bumpy road. Luckily it hadnt stuck to the glass.
2. Taking the back off was hirlariously funny. Firstly the back was far too small and to compensate for the framers mistake this, it had been packed out at the sides with scrap pieces of mount board, hard board and here's the best bit, old used matches. (I was waiting for the old Cornflake packet as a barrier board, but alas I was disappointed)
3. The frame was a 1/2 inch black cushion, so very flexable (like me) and straps had been fashioned out of three, 4 inch scrap pieces of hard board and nailed across the back and into the frame. Not even stapled, bloody nailed. The stress on the poor frame, almost splitting the moulding in half, but cheap and nasty, yellow, or sort of yellow to be more precise, masking tape sorted and hid that problem.
4. On one side of the frame, diamond points were used, one another, short framers points were used, and on the last 2 sides, short panel pins were used. Wish I worked with him, eh? What an education that would have been!

I tried to drymount the photograph and got it perfectly flat, but the cockling problem had left its mark, the photograph is now as if it was done in time lapse, cut and pasted together and printed like that, although I must admit, its looks better now that it originally did when it came in.

Now come on 'forumers', lets have a bit of levity here for a change, it is almost Christmas after all, time to be merry and all that crap, what is the worst expamle you have ever had the misfortune to reframe or reglaze, etc. I bet there are some Doozies out there?

Steven