The Framers Forum

Funny stories. There is a guy near us who is quite a good bespoke framer/hand finisher. But he likes to remain quiet and does a lot of gallery work. My wholesaler goes to him and I asked one day if he could let me have his details, just in case we could help each other out - sometimes I need extra h...

A shame - pretty sure the frame room is the part of their business that did contract or complex framing for smaller framers. Maybe they will focus on that now. Reducing wholesale competition cannot generally be good for the framer I feel. Mitrecraft was a funny one and maybe if things had happened i...

I used a big plastic moulding for a foamex sign on my unit front. A year on it seems 100% fine and I chose it cos it was plastic/cheap/lightweight. Black finish though and of the mainline polcore type - some like the Simons Emafyl do seem to have a more delicate finish that can crack and peel. Agree...

A successful artist can be a very good customer but they are fairly well spread out and rare. Some value frames, some don't take it as seriously. Some are so disorganised or ask such out there things that they can be very time consuming and in the end low margin even if spending a lot. If that's you...

We are in Malton near York and may be interested if decent volumes especially so can be packed up economically. Not too far away and if you ever pass this way all the better.

We've done quite a few cigarette card mounts in unusual arrangements for incomplete sets.

How do you qualify being the Uk's largest manufacturer? Would we not all have heard of you before?

I think framing is fairly easy in, easy out (but harder than it looks to do well) so a lot will close in any given year, especially as it seems like largely an older man's game. As it usually just pays the owner's wage, it's hard to sell it on for anything much as anyone with a job would not usually...

Handywrap in combo with Simon's cardboard corners (mult-size) are a good way of wrapping picture frames for collection. Cover the frame and it stops finger marks, while leaving the image in view if you wrap edges only. Cheap and effective. The wrap sticks to itself best so you need to get round once...

we did some random stuff in the early days as it all helped but thankfully less need these days. We hand scanned 40 volumes of books and made them searchable pdfs for a museum. We cut some glass for a greenhouse repair, we made 120 menus for a local cafe, we designed some business cards and outsourc...

Looks good Emma. For your puprose this is a great site - somewhere to point people and not overcomplicated. Professionally done but with nice humour. You could pack it with a few more keywords and phrases (e.g. framer wanted, trade framer) to get found by search engines and customers, but as you are...

Anybody looking for a bit more support might note that UK Framing Supplies have 3 used/refurbed double mitre saws for sale T350 Double Mitre Saw Cs999 Double Mitre Saw Cs939 Double Mitre Saw As per their April mailshot. Funny I have a burnt out bambi and a jun-air. Then went for a big sealey in a cu...

I have jumbo everything luckily and have even done single mounts "bigger than jumbo" thinking outside the box, but more things to consider doing for an oversize picture frame: Get the glass or plastic in cut to size from a van supplier e.g. wessex/glass and mirror (same group) or go to loc...

I have one experienced framer going down to part-time/phasing out which opens up an opportunity here for someone to join the team of 6. Based near York nearly half way to Scarborough in a lovely area - you could live in the city, on the coast, in our small but lively market town or right out in the ...

I agree that in most normal businesses, barring big initial investment or a genius groundbreaking idea, 2-4 years is when you will start to see things ease, and after 5 should be going well. You can feel very proud if you achieve that and it will take work, as it's far from a given. Take advice but ...

This business was started partly by my old fastway driver so you would be in the same trade and smallish town as me if you took the unit as well. You can sell online though and plenty of niches to be carved for people, though it is very competitive as there are very few barriers to entry in this mar...

I do this too from time to time. We have even printed onto archival or photo paper and mounted it to mountboard, then cut it. Which is not a budget option but works well for a good print. You can do this with a single print/poster too if you want a nearly continuous image and mount, use a slip mount...

I have two silent compressors, both 2008 models - neither in the best of health sadly. Now I have a bigger workshop with seperate offices and a cupboard I have swapped the quiet life for a beefy 150 litre compressor to also run my expanding machine and tool list. These compressors are both in need o...

We worked till about 10pm every night in December and then had a winter sun break, came back on 9th Jan. Dec was 50% busier than last year and like last year we had to turn work away, otherwise might have been able to double last year but we prefer to make sure we don't let anyone down, and get some...

Interesting... I think you would only do very well from this if you had very high traffic e.g. you had a popular photography blog or forum. It all helps though. From experience or speaking to others I know it is possible to sell quite a bit on Amazon itself if you have a store, including internation...

ha ha I tried ringing them twice two weeks ago... just kept ringing

They are very sturdy machines