Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

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A Few More Words
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Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by A Few More Words »

Following on from a Visit to Bovey Tracey earlier this year on a course given by Mark Lacy on Hand Finishing mouldings.....I eventually got around to putting some of the techniques learned there to good use. Following one of Mark's techniques, using simple raw woods from Simons, we have created a kleidoscope of colour with this simple moulding and a bunch of color tester paints.

We've taken it a bit to the extreme to create a showpiece display for an event we're attending later this month. ( National Ploughing competition / trade stand ) .......where we will be launching our New "Spectrum" range of hand finished mouldings.

Photo belows shows one 2m wide wall of the display stand which we are now building in preparation for the event....will have to then dismantle and have in the van on Fri before FF Live , so to travel to site to set up on Mon morn after FF for the event on Tue/ Wed / Thur.
Spectrum Mouldings.jpg
Spectrum Mouldings.jpg (98.18 KiB) Viewed 10558 times
I'm particularly pleased with the result of combining gold with black and silver with black. Hopefully this splash of colour will help some prospective customers remember our stand. We're looking forward to being able to greatly extend our moulding possibilities for our customers with this technique and just 2 simple mouldings.

After that, Ill have to have a go at creating some of the more involved techniques that we did with Mark on that course, which was certainly well worth attending.
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by Jonny2morsos »

Like your asymetrical chevrons!!
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by Steve N »

Far too many colours, the customer will take DAYS to make thier minds up :giggle: , it's bad enough giving them eight colours to choose from :head:

But it does look a good display :clap: , hope you have a good time.
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by prospero »

There is some force in what Steve says. :P But as a marketing statement it does have the 'jawdropper' effect. :o
I'd say there are about 400 colours there. On two base mouldings. Imagine keeping that in stock in finished form. :?

One thing I used to do is to get a some simple black cushion and spray it with car paint. The metallic shades looked fantastic. The beauty of it is that the moulding needs minimal preparation. A quick wipe over with thinners to de-grease it and you can spray straight on and it produces a really tough finish. Big rattle cans are quite economic, but for bigger volume work you could buy the paint in a tin and spray it. A medium-sized spray gun isn't too expensive and most framers have a compressor already on the plot. A dedicated spray area is a good idea though.....
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by kev@frames »

really nice.
inspired me to do something more with shop display of our painted ranges. (we have a moulding made up by norfolk mouldings, one which was discontined by mainline a few years ago which we couldn't find anywhere else at all, so we had to get it made and we offer about 20 different paint/finish options on it)

I really like the asymetrical chevrons idea, that is really smart. never seen that before. with most pictures being either portrait or lanscape, it makes such sense to have one chevron arm longer then the other. was that your idea? ten out of ten.

Funnily enough I was chatting with a rep today, moaning that me board seems to be all brown gold and silver.... and there we are with a back room full of fired earth, laura ashley, and farrow and ball eggshell :head:
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Tom,

If you had asked me before I saw the picture, I probably would have said "Why so many colours", but now I've seen the picture I have to say that is a very impressive display and a brilliant marketing concept.

I love the idea, the display says it all, nothing more to add. Your customers are gonna love it! It is said that the best ideas are simple ones which have been brilliantly executed. I think this applies to this idea!

Also the asymetrical chevrons are great. What a superb idea! So distinctive and practical too!
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by A Few More Words »

Thanks all for your comments.

First...I must confess on the asymetrical moulding chevrons..............Its something I saw At the West Coast fair back in Jan.......on the LJ stand............ I thought it looked good so decided to use the idea here so that the range would be differentiated from other mouldings. The point about being more useful when sampling against artwork is certainly valid. See photo !!
west coast.jpg
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Having done the display of the small samples of the complete range ( 400 + ) and the chevrons , I decided that we would also need a few pieces framed up with some of these mouldings....to show to our customers etc... Here are a couple of pieces we did ;


spectrum frame 1.jpg
spectrum frame 1.jpg (74.69 KiB) Viewed 10364 times
We already had this bear etc framed up in a plain large brown moulding...Nord 001 /2 ? .............so we disassembled , relaid out and reframed.

spectrum frame sample 2.jpg
spectrum frame sample 2.jpg (75.15 KiB) Viewed 10364 times

Here is a photo of a Carlow football player in our County colours...(now works with us )......photo during a match and one of his gloves worn on the day. Here we stacked the moulding......one on end and one flat on top ......to give us the required depth............the colour of the top frame is a red / yellow combo to match the photo...............while the moulding below it on end is a red / green combo (same red).......to tie in with green in jersey............and altogether capture the red / yellow /green of the team jersey color

What I found most interesting so far in this process of framing with these mouldings............is the ease of selecting the desired moulding.........Selecting the "correct " moulding for a piece is certailly not normally my forte.....All I did was here was walk over to the display and move the artwork around until I zoned in on the shade I thought was most appropriate..........Bingo ! For me it was easier than it would have been to select from a "normal " limited color chevron board..........perhaps because of the wide available selection of color hues........I think it actually took out some of the normal guess work !!! Time will tell how it works for customers !!

Thanks
Tom
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Tom,

It was very nice to be able to meet you again at the FFLive event. I love your mouldings display. It's so different and in my opinion it is one of the most inspiring framing ideas I have seen for a very long time!

I would love to do something similar myself, but it would not be practical for me to commit six days to producing those four hundred samples. I'm amazed that you were able to spend such a long time producing so many samples. Dedication indeed!

Not only that, but I would guess you must have had a concept for the range of colours before you started. Can I be nosey and ask how you created the concept. Is there a formal relationship between the colours within the matrix, or did you just go with the flow and that's how it came out?
Mark Lacey

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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by A Few More Words »

Regarding the "concept"
I wanted to achieve the greatest possible color matrix from a set of paints.

I selected 22 different color sample pots from an available range...each of which i numbered 1 thru 22 ......I then painted each of 22 1.5m lengths of moulding with one of these colours.....so now I had 22 lengths of moulding each of a different color.........
I then cut each of these coloured lengths into 21 pieces of 70mm length each........as I cut them, I labelled each small piece on its back with its corresponding paint color....01......02......03 etc
I then painted on each top coat paint......painting topcoat 01 onto a set of pieces (except basecoat 01) ,,,,,,,,labelling each piece with the applied topcoat paint code as i went .......then painting top coat 02 onto another full set of pieces (except basecopat 02) and so on until all pieces had been base and top coated with the complete matrix of possible color combinations for that given 22 paints (ie 22 x 21 pieces )
each piece now had the paint code of its base and top coat color wrote on its back. eg 01/02...........21/22 etc etc
Once the pieces were finished off by stripping back some of the top color , to reval the 2 tone affect, they were waxed and polished off.
They were then placed on the board........horizontally according to base color code.........all 1's on top 01/02, 01/03, 01/04 etc ......then 02's etc and so on down the board.
I could have got a better graduated visual effect on the board if I had paid some more attention to labelling the paints 1 thru 22 in a more color graduated sequence...........At some point , I may rearrange them on the board to give a more graduated effect....But for now they'll have to do !!

Preparing this quantity of small pieces could perhaps be considered a type of therapy !

Thanks
Tom
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Re: Our New Range of "Spectrum" Mouldings

Post by Not your average framer »

A Few More Words wrote:could perhaps be considered a type of therapy !
:head:

:giggle:
Mark Lacey

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