The Framers Forum

Arqadia moulding 258492348, mount slips from Nielsen or Arqadia. Artcare 'Indigo' mount with 'Hunter green' to back the Royal Marine badge - closest colour we could get to the green beret. Artglass UV, black foam board spacers.
Customer said it had taken him (through the Royal Marines and eventually a comrades association) 5 years to find what medals his grandfather had won and get replicas.

Mrs R tried it using just his number and surname and found all the info in about 10 minutes!

I really like that Robo, very classy. I have been looking for a good design for medal framing and that looks like the one.

Thanks

Ross

Very nice! I have never noticed this moulding in the Arqadia catalogue so think I might get some samples as I see it also comes in black.

Funny thing is when the Reps. call they always show you the new stuff but never think to take a look at your display to see if there are any of the old ones that would fill a few gaps.

I have some medals of my late uncle's that have been hanging around a while (since 1945 actually) to frame so I might use this moulding.

robo - really superb job - simple but striking. Very pleased to see you have the medals in the correct order and the ribbons the right way round - you would be surprised how many we have seen all to c#ck!! very well done.

There was a little leaflet (which I fixed to the back of the frame) with a full list of campaign medals in order and the missing ones crossed out, each medal had a ribbon description, so I couldn't go wrong really - well that is my framer couldn't, he did it all bar the final assembly.

These little leaflets often come with a set and I've got them scanned and saved anyway - plus it's all google-able. if I need help I can go to the forum of the regiment I served with which has quite a few serial military history nerds.

The ribbons go through a 1mm reverse bevelled aperture that I'd not attempt without a CMC (I gave the customer the opton of having the ribbons touching and the medals slightly overlapping, like they'd be worn) and the medals are fastened with tiny melinex straps, the circular ones have just one at the pivot point and the stars have two each, one where the top point meets the ring and one at the bottom of the bottom point. I took a photo of the mount on its side - no movement at all - also took a macro shot of the straps, will post those next week as they're not saved on this PC at home.

I like these tiny mount slips a lot - buy them 60m a time in gold & silver about 5 times a year. Arqadia reckon a 'rebate depth' of 5mm but the depth of the whole thing is just over 3mm, they can be made flush with standard thickness mount board.

They go so well with so many mouldings with a thin gold or silver sight edge. Cutting tiny ones as per the title aperture is tricky - the Morso can't be set that small. We extend the stop with a mitred flat moulding offcut and do it by eye; if what is cut is too small/large, it's tossed, adjust and try again because replacing and trimming puts your fingers too close to the blades.

The cap badge was a doddle to mount, there's two soldered rings on the back that would pass through the beret/hat (/mount board) and be secured wth a split pin, there was no split pin so a small length of super sofstrand was tried, that was too thin so two short lengths were twisted together and they scewed through the rings so snugly that nothing else needed doing.

Those cap badges - obviously the ones that just slide in are best/easiest but the ones with rings - if the split pin is missing i use an old fashioned hair grip .

That was actually my first thought and I thought I bet we sell them too, or if not, we sell jewellery-making stuff, bound to be something there, but the super softstrand was handy and it was done in less time than it would have took to walk from the workshop to the shop and back.

The other thought was to just bend the badge's soldered rings in (I've done that to wear a badge in an emergency) but they were too rigid and snapping was a risk.

Nice.....will def get some of the slips!

Here's the other two shots I mentioned.