The Framers Forum

Over the years, I have accumilated various left overs of mountboard which have resulted from customers choosing unpopular mountboard colours and what is left becomes dead stock. I do try and use it up, doing other this with it, but I'm still have various bits and pieces which are mostly just taking up space, without serving any good purpose. I still keep ending up with enough left over which are of much more useful colours, so it's much easier to use the more useful colours for other purposes and the less useful stuff still remains.

I don't like throwing away stuff which has cost me money, so this not very useful and not particularly useful stock keeps on growing. Unfortunately, converting it into anything useful and saleable usually is rather a time consuming exercise and does not necessarily generate any worthwhile financial return. Any good ideas, what is worthwhile to do with this?
Thanks.

Undermounts? Doesn’t matter what colour they are and uses up dead stock

Thanks, that's true! I have been mostly been producing undermouts from left over Arquadia boards as I have stopped stocking these and mostly buy Colourmount boards 300 series boards from the Simons key range as they are a really good price. Quite a long time ago the Aquadia had quality issues and I switched to the Colourmount boards and the Simons super value conservations board and have stayed with the ever since, because they are such a good deal. I've got more sheets of mountboard than I know what to do with. When I first started I bought a lot of stock from a framing shop in Totnes and this included 600 sheets of Tru-vue mountboard mostly in full and unopened packs, then tru-vue stopped selling mountboard and I switched to Neilse bainbridge, but Neilsen bainbridge when through a period where most of what I tried to order was out of stock. I then switched to Arquadia, but after a while they had quality control issuse, wth big black lumps in the board and I switched to Colourmont 300 series and Simons super value conservation boards.

I'm still stuck with some of everything from each of these suppiers. This was not planned to be this way, but this is just the way that it has turned out! Added to this, I buy my backing boards in two lage packs at a time and I stock three different types of backing board, plus also two packs of greyboard as well. When I was really busy, this was not a problem. After I moved to a smaller shop and had my stroke, I don't have so much space to store lots of boards. Life is fun, isn't it! I used to make good use of greyboard at one time, but not so much anymore! I not used used it to make some things, but used it to cover my work benches. Right now, it does not get used very much at all and I've probably got enough to last for the next ten years. There used to be a cutting tool called a Goscut and I've got an old one. It cuts thin slots in sheet materials. Mine is pretty worn out and new refubishing, but it used to work well enough to make small interleaved dividers for inside little box frames.

I used to do this with painted greyboard and the greyboard gets quite stiff and strong, when you paint it. I have tried ths with 2.5mm MDf, but painted MDF just produces something that does not look all that great. I have not made any box frames with dividers for years. I only ever sold a few at the time and I don't reckon that they will be very worthwhile in todays difficult times. Unless, I can find another worthwhile use for greyboard, I probably won't be using it very much! I am still thinking of making some frame spandrel using greyboard, but it probably not a very big market for stuff like that. Some oval mirrors might do somethng, but I don't think I wll be selling too many of those. From time to time, customers want the get cheap canvases stuck down on to boards and layering greyboad to make the boards can be useful to do.

It's a sad fact that you always get more small bits than small jobs.

I had a big purge not so long ago and cleared out a LOT of little bits. Some went to the veg shop down the street for
price placards (bananas 1/6d lb). Have in the past given them to organisations who do occupational therapy.

It is handy to keep a few bits around for various jobs, but generally these operations make a miniscule dent in the heap.

I know it's human nature to think "That will come in handy one day...", but in reality unless you invent a job to use the little
bits on you may as well call it scrap and bin it. I've never chucked anything and wanted it later.

I have a couple of boxes of offcuts (one whites, one colours) of around 40 x 30 cm. Too big to throw away, too small to go with my main rack of part sheets.

I used to keep them under a bench.

Then I had the brilliant idea of leaving them in view in my shop and putting an "offcuts £1" sign on them.

Been selling a steady trickle ever since. I still have them to hand if I can use them, but instead of just accumulating more and more they do seem to be slowly disappearing.

I take mine to the local primary school for their arts and crafts work. Other than that it is simply paper/card. Bin it. It is recyclable and will come back to you as toilet paper or some other useful item.

I have not been doing much for a while. but some bits of waste mountboard find their way into frames and box frames for sale. I don't sell these very cheap like ready made frames available elsewhere, as I want a decent price for these. Some get used even for framing some customers jobs, where they are wanting to save money on their framing. My normal framing prices have needed to increase since earlier in the year, to cover increased materials costs.

I'm only doing a fairly limited amount of framing so far, so it's not a lot of money and using left over materials tends to be the name of the game where I can. Surprisingly enough, I have some quite large pieces of waste mountboard, but there are not always in the most useful colours, so I some times trim off any lettering from the reverse side and use them with the rear face facining forwards. The white rear is not always a nice smooth looking surface, but sometimes beggars can't be chosers.

Not your average framer wrote: ↑Sat 23 Jul, 2022 9:00 am Over the years, I have accumilated various left overs of mountboard which have resulted from customers choosing unpopular mountboard colours and what is left becomes dead stock. I do try and use it up, doing other this with it, but I'm still have various bits and pieces which are mostly just taking up space, without serving any good purpose. I still keep ending up with enough left over which are of much more useful colours, so it's much easier to use the more useful colours for other purposes and the less useful stuff still remains.

I don't like throwing away stuff which has cost me money, so this not very useful and not particularly useful stock keeps on growing. Unfortunately, converting it into anything useful and saleable usually is rather a time consuming exercise and does not necessarily generate any worthwhile financial return. Any good ideas, what is worthwhile to do with this?
Thanks.

Mark, are you aware that you started this thread just over a month ago (which I appreciate you may have forgotten), and now you're effectively trying to answer your own query?!

H jo,

I did not mention this before and just thouught I might mention this.

Fair enough Mark, you do you.

Pack them into small packs of the same size. You may need to do more cutting. Sell on eBay or Etsy to crafters and model makers.

That's an interesting thought. There is an approved post office package size called "large letter". It is basically designed to be capable of posting through a standard sized letter box and has a particular weight limit, but the cost of postage is a minimal cost. I forget the cost, but my local packaging company manufactures them on a computer comtrolled machine. They are flat packed, but very easily can be folded into shape and locked together with tabs which click into place.

Large Letter

Max length: 35.3cm
Max width: 25cm
Max thickness: 2.5cm
Max weight: 750g

At this point in time the cost of delivery for a parcel of up to 250g with proof of delivery for i day delnvry is £3.45' For 3 day delivery it is £3.05.

For the lower weight of 100g the prices for 1 day delivery with proof of delivery are £2.85. For three day delivery it is £2.45.

The standard size boxes for the larger packet size are not very thick corrogaed card board and more than likely will require additional internal packaging for added protection. I bought some of these boxes in the past and for free delivery by my supplier I had to buy 20 boxes. I' not really sure have appealing these postage prices might be!

I probably won't convince Mark, but I've learned the hard way that the time spent chopping stuff up to make little frames that people only want to pay a few pounds for isn't worth my while. I'm now ruthless in getting rid of anything that I'm not going to use fairly quickly and concentrate on finding and completing better paid work. If you're pricing work properly the scraps have already been paid for anyway, and it's a great feeling having a nice tidy workshop once you've got rid of all the odds and ends.

Little frames are not always easy to sell. They only usually sell well in pairs and pairs of frames hinged together. My town used to be much mre of a tourist destination and they were a lot easier to sell at one time. but definely less so now. I do get quite a reasonable amount of left over glass and a backing boards and quite often these pieces are large enough to enable me to produce reasonably sized frames, but most of the moulding off cuts tend to be mostly more suitable for smaller frames. My town is full of little old terraced cottages from centuries ago, which have lots of little nooks and crannies, which are mostly suitable for only small frames and little nick nacks. When people either die, or move away, they often take their little frames way, but these days quite a lot of new owner are tending to have the walls re-plastered and have these little nock and crannies hidden behind the plasterboard, which does not help me a lot. Many of these old cottages have exposed beams in the ceilling and all sorts of thing get hung of nails driven into the ceiling beams.

These beams are often anything upto a foot and a half deep. Where the internal walls are plaster will old original cob, driving nail into the walls can cause large pieces of cob to break free, so many local hang pictures of pieces of exposed woodwork. As a result, I do get to sell various frames that might not sell in lass old and rural town. However my town is a much harder place to be trying to sell items to customers, since the credit crunch of 2008. I have not been properly opening for business for maybe 4 to 4 1/2 years, so to be honest I don't really know what to expect when I finally get to fully re-open. I've been largely taking the easy way out and producing a few arts and crafts style frames for a few friends who want frames for interior design customers. Frames like this are quite enjoyable to do, but since I have been selling them to the trade, they have not been as profitable to make as I would like. Hoever generally small frames,don't make much money unless there is something special about them and it is a bit difficult always managing to keep coming up with new and interesing ways of presenting the same old things.

JonathanB wrote: ↑Sun 28 Aug, 2022 10:28 am I probably won't convince Mark, but I've learned the hard way that the time spent chopping stuff up to make little frames that people only want to pay a few pounds for isn't worth my while. I'm now ruthless in getting rid of anything that I'm not going to use fairly quickly and concentrate on finding and completing better paid work. If you're pricing work properly the scraps have already been paid for anyway, and it's a great feeling having a nice tidy workshop once you've got rid of all the odds and ends.

Couldn’t agree with you more.

So I guess you will not do anything then. Just talk about it. This is the last time I’ll look a this forum for a while.

Yes, I’m off too. Until the moderator is moderated there is no point visiting. This place just annoys me now. It’ll be just you and the tumbleweeds soon Mark but it seems that is what you want?