The Framers Forum

Hi all,

I have just become aware of a current supply chain issue for linen mountboards with no stock available from Wessex or LJ (I am UK based). Not great as I have been upselling linen boards this month and have about 5 orders for LJ's Gingersnap board!

Does anyone have any experience with making their own linen wrapped boards? Is it worth trying?

Thanks

AMF

If you’ve ever peeled the surface off these fabric boards you’ll know it’s extremely flimsy stuff. If you covered a board with normal fabrics and cut an aperture through that, the corners may not be too clever.

Fabric wrapping already cut mounts is different - nobody does it in UK but it’s a big thing across the pond. I made a trip to the US in 2006 to take a course on it by Baer Charlton, who at the time was a rep for a company called Frank’s fabrics.

He has a range of YouTube videos on the subject, here’s one, you should see the rest.

JKX wrote: Mon 24 Feb, 2025 11:47 am **nobody does it in UK but it’s a big thing across the pond.

..... ** more accurate to say "not many people choose to do this in the UK" maybe?

Our biggest problem is not having a supplier like Frank's Fabrics in the UK where we can reliably get fabric in the same way you can order mountboard. Nothing to stop you getting a supply and creating your own line though, as frustrating as that is compared to just being able to use an existing board.

Wessex have stock of the Crescent cream - you could always get that as an alternative and paint it. Just lift the glass off the surface in case it wants to create wet patches.

We use a mix of LJ and Crescent linens - looks like the LJ ones are being pulled and some of the Crescent ones too. So we might have to resort to creating our own as well - we've not done linen covered before but we've done other fabrics as one offs. Wrapped after cutting the aperture, rather than stuck and then cut. Although we did do a very nice fine oak veneer stuck to a mountboard and that cut really well on our Gunnar.

Tudor Rose wrote: Mon 24 Feb, 2025 1:38 pm ..... ** more accurate to say "not many people choose to do this in the UK" maybe?

I probably should have put "Nobody" in inverted commas.

Have a nice day.

Back on topic,
Pure and Applied Conservation Framing do linen wrapped mounts.

https://www.pureandapplied.co.uk/