The Framers Forum

Hi
I am relatively new to art. After a long career in technical/data based office jobs, I semi retired and took up woodwork to fill my time. An accident put paid to that as I smashed my wrist (on my dominant hand no less) and was completely incapacitated, so I took up painting. Well, who knew?! Certainly not me, but it seems I have a little talent and a creative side after all!
I took a stand at a local art exhibition in May and sold 7 pieces which was exhilarating.
My next step - and the reason for joining this forum - is obvious. I now want to present my artwork in a more professional manner by framing some of the finished artwork.
So I am starting out small, and remaining small, this will be a back-garden-workshop affair using manual equipment and I have just bought a mitre trimmer and a Logan pro joiner before I discovered this forum and realised I may have been better asking what I needed before splurging on things that might not have been recommended.
I have a thirst for learning though and would be happy to be pointed in the direction of getting some guidance for the basics - maybe a course or if there was anyone in this county or the next that might be willing to give some guidance (paid or otherwise) I'd be eternally grateful.
I am not looking to start a business/compete with anyone/or take anyone's business, at least not in framing, whereas if my art took off a little aided by decent, well-made frames, now, that'd be a thing!

Hi Hazel,
Welcome to the forum!
Everything you need to know can be found using the search box. There really is an incredible amount of knowledge documented on the forum. When I first joined, I read the entire site from beginning to end. Not something I recommend unless framing is your new obsession!

Hi and welcome Hazel

As you will be framing your own work, and using fairly basic equipment, I would recommend starting off with unfinished mouldings (Rose and Hollis have a good range, but most suppliers do a few) choose Obeche because it is easy to cut and join, and choose a profile that is chunky, with some detail that will allow you to paint one section in a contrasting colour, and has a straight back edge which will make it easier to join.

Then make your frame, polyfilla and sandpaper will help you deal with any imperfections. Then get a couple of match pots from the local DIY store - Craig & Rose chalk paint is my go-to, but any chalky emulsion will be fine. Mostly these days people want frames that are white/off white. I usually put a couple of coats of off white over the whole frame, and then do one or two sections in a slightly darker colour (to enhance the picture).

If the edge between the colours is spot on, then I would then just wax it with Liberon Clear wax. More normally, the paining isn't 100% perfect, so I wax first with Liberon Liming Wax, pushing the wax into the edge where the paint lines meet, and then polish off the Liming Wax with Clear wax, just leaving the bits that make my edges look straight. (Obviously Liming Wax will only help like this on a white(ish) frame - other wax colours are available).

This type of frame not only looks original, but you can easily repair it if you bash it on the way to an exhibition!

You'll see loads of threads on here about paint finishes, this is a simple one to start on.

Hi Metgirl!,

Welcome to the forum and I hope that you will enjoy being part of it. You have certainly come to the right place as we like to help people who are new to all this. Don't be affraid to ask questions, even one's which you think sound silly, all of us had to start not knowing much, so we understand what it is like at first. I too can understand what it is like trying to do things with physical difficulties, as I am a stroke victim and only have extremely limited use of my right hand, which is my dominant hand, but there are other ways of doing things, although it can take a while to find these things out.

I had a blood clot in the left side of my brain and this severely affected the functioning of the right hand side of my body, including some of my internal organs, but even when bad things happen to people, they don't usually give up and instead still keep trying and bit by bit we get there. I've had to find new ways of doing things, because I can no longer work as I previously used to. I have so far found that there are alternative ways whch have enabled me to continue working as a picture framer.

If you look at my posts on the forum, you will probably notice that I concentrate on methods which are quick, simple and easy! This does not means that these methods produce inferior results as that would be pointless. In my case, I still function as a right handed person as my brain is still a right handed brain, unfortunately my right hand causes me problems. Some of these problems have been solved by using power tools to make up for my lack of physical strength, or co-ordination. I also don't walk well and move around my workshop by holding on to things to help me to balance.

I'm not beaten and you won't be beaten either. Customers come to me because I still can do thngs to a really high standard and I think it will be the same with you. We do adapt and find new ways of doing things as we continue, as I am sure that you are already finding out for yourself. I wish you well and look forward to seeing your activity on the forum. This is a friendly place and full of friendly people and I hope you will enjoy getting to know many of us.

All the best,
Mark.

Thank you for the welcome and the top tips! Much appreciated. I will have a look at those paints/wax mentioned!
Thanks again.
Hazel

Hello and welcome to the forum, I'm only an occasional poster but I have got lots of useful help here. One thing I noticed was you say you have a mitre trimmer but you haven't mentioned a saw. You will need a saw too as the trimmer only cuts slivers off, so it's just for the final cut to get a good clean mitre. You may already know this but I thought I would mention! Also the cheap hand mitre saws aren't very good, I got one when I was first experimenting with framing and soon have up with it. For my first kit I ended up with a cheap electric mitre saw and then finishing with a mitre trimmer. It would be helpful to get the measuring guides too I think if you don't already have them

Gesso & Bole is offering some helpful advise. There are also other framers on the forum who also hand finish bare wood mouldings and I would guess that most of us who do this have our own preferrences and methods of how we do things. Eventually you may develop you own preferrences and methods as well and you may find it helpful to look at some of the previous postings on this forum relating to hand finishing, or hand fisihed frames. I hope that you will find this helpful.

Welcome to this forum.
You've already had some very good advice and here's some of my own.
If you want to make frames that compliment and help sell your art, then you are best going for wide complex mouldings, as has already been recommended.
With these you can experiment with all sorts of finishes and find which effect best suits what you have in mind for your art.
Next is buy a cheap mitre block and a simple tennon saw.
Mitre cut each of the four frame sides about 1/4" oversize in lenght.
Now bring them to your local frame shop. Smile, be nice and ask him to use his Morso to trim the mitres. This will only take a minute or so.
He'll want money - pay him.
You buying a Morso will cost at least £600 second hand.
Last thing to do is buy a strap band clamp ( £12 ), some woodworking PVA and join up the frame yourself.
Perfectly joined frame leaving you to get on with something more creative in the finishing.

Thanks again.
I should've said, I have an electric mitre saw and bought a fine toothed blade and fitted an extra fence to the back of it. I know it is not as good as a Morso thingy, but my budget doesn't stretch to that just yet.
I made my first tray/floating frame using the (rather paltry) tools I have and got a pretty good result. I purchased white L shape moulding from Lion so just had to cut it, get good mitres, then hand painted with white chalk paint, sand etc...
It won't be as good as a professional finish, but I have dozens of canvases, and this was the most cost effective way of doing it for now.
If/when I sell more paintings, I will hand them over to a pro to do.... so this is a stopgap hopefully.
Thanks again everyone. Great forum and everyone seems very helpful and encouraging, which is a refreshing change these days

I don't see why you shouldn't get professional results with a mitre saw and trimmer, it will just be a slower process and take a bit of time and practice. Personally I'd make a feature of selling with your own frames, you can say the whole thing has been made by yourself.

There's not a lot wrong with a mitre trimmer and plenty of small volume framers use them and obtain good quality results. There is a particular way to use a mitre trimmer to obtain the best results and that is to only use the trimmer to remove a very thin slice, which requires less effort and produces the best life between sharpenings for the blades. If you are using an electric mitre saw, followed by using a mitre trimmer it's not necessarily a very slow process and actually there is a lot less to go wrong requiring fixing on a mitre trimmer, than on a Morso.

I did not have a Morso at all, when I first started and I still got by just fine. I also did not have a proper underpinner at that time either, but pressed in the wedges using a drill stand and one of those magnetic wedge holders frome Lion. It is perfectly possible to make nice frames, without needing to buy high budget equipment at all, for those wanting to operate at a less expensive and less volume related requirements. I'm not of the opinion that using a mitre trimmer is in any way inadequate for this purpose,

Sure there is a learning curve and there are proper ways of using a mitre trimmer to get the best results, but much of this is manly a matter of practice and learning what works best.

Hi and Welcome Hazel.

Some good advice there. If you are framing your own work there are several plus points to creating hand-finished frames.

1] You don't really need bells'n'whistles pro kit. If you get any 'imperfections' you can make them good in the finishing process
and as long as your joins are sound no one will be any the wiser.

2] No huge stocks of expensive finished mouldings.

3] You can do them exactly to your liking and create your own design which nobody else does.

4] Any dings you pick up while trawling around exhibitions can be repaired perfectly. Nothing looks worse than tatty frames.
You can't usually do that with factory finished which at best look 'touched up'.

Hi Hazel,

Other advantages are that you can create frames that are unique to you and that are an expression of what you personally want them to be and also you may wish to create frames to suit your own standard size of artwork, so that you can re-use frames which you made earlier for artworks which have not sold for another artwork instead. Don't be too concerned about what other people tell you that you need, trust your own instincts about how you want to do things and with the equipment you decide to use. What you are doing is personal to you and how you want to do things is part of your own personal journey and your own creative satisfaction. Go for it girl and enjoy!