The Framers Forum

Pullover sleeves.

Now the weather is turning a bit chilly I have donned my woolly pully.

Trouble is, if you roll the sleeves up they don't stay up.

Painting frames, I trail them all over the wet paint.

Then I found an elastic band.

Put the band on just above my elbow. Can't feel it or even know It's there.

Works a treat. Sleeves stay out of the paint.


All I need now is a rubber band for the other arm.

Can I find one? Can I f-fairy cakes.

Ha ha, know what you mean about long sleeves, luckily some ladies jumpers are available with 3/4 sleeves which are brilliant!

My husband bought a pair of sleeve garters for a Peaky Blinders party that will probably never be used again - shall I post them on?!! Or just this pile of elastic bands that are sitting at the end of bench...

Woolly pully sleeves.

I like mine down but, I am a frequent hand washer and as a consequence my sleeves get wet and so uncomfortable. When painting/staining etc I have a box of those cheap disposable surgical gloves.

If it's not to cold my solution is to wear a sleeveless wooly jumper under my piny

I will try the elastic band trick though. Thanks

Peter.

I used to wear a pinny but it chafed the back of my neck.

I have two wardrobes. One is permanently covered in paint and the other......isn't.

I work wearing an armless fleece which zips up at the front. It's not the height of elegance as it has various traces of PVA glue and paint, which in spite of trying to sponge off before things get the chance to set, you never really quite manage to leave no trace at all. I don't seen to get paint, or glue onto my shirt sleeves for some unknown reason, so this does not seem to be a problem.

My shop is an old shop and was built during the reign of Queen Elizabeth the first. It's not especially warm in cold weather and does not have central heating, so I rely upon a plug in oil filled radiator and a small fan heater. These two heaters are placed close together and their thermostats are set, to allow the fan heater to provide some fast heat, but the oil filled radiator, by being close to the fan heater soon generates enough heat to trip the thermostat in the fan heater and quickly shut down the fan heater.

The shop does not get massively warm and the thermostat knobs are taped in position, so as to not get disturbed. I am a type 2 diabetic and my body temperature tend to go up and down a bit, which means I have a jumper I can remove, or replace during working. As a result my winter electricity bills remain reasonably low and affordable, but the shop is still at a relatively comfortable temperature. I have a a number of working jumpers that I've bought from local charity shops.

The jumpers are not all that smart and some are beginning to look a bit fuzzy, but it's a working environment and I'm there to be the worker, so I figure that's all right.

Get some arm gators, Prospero.... stick on some rag time jazz, and pretend you're in The Sting.

I'm trying to invent some new varnish, and to this end I had to buy some real Turpentine. The stuff I got has a really nice smell.
I think I'm going to use this instead of the White Spirit I use routinely. I don't really notice the odours that permeate my workshop
as you get used to it, but visitors often remark (mostly favourably) on how it smells. Although I did nearly asphyxiate the post lady
one morning.

I love the way my workshop smells. It's a combination of germylene, wintergreen and old spice but it must be too warm as the customers always leave the door open

Customers are always telling me how much they like the smell of my shop as well. I think it's mostly the smell of wood and the small of paste wax. I don't notice it very much, but I have several bare wood pine mouldings which I either regularly use for quick and easy handfinished mouldings, or stacked together to create reasonably priced larger profiles. Therefore I am guessing that the pine probably accounts for a good proportion of the woody part ot the smell.

There are a few larger pine mouldings that I slice up by rip cutting them on my bandsaw and this produces very fine sawdust, which probably realses the smell of the pine quite effectively because of the smaller sawdust particules. I can recommend a medium sized band saw as a good way of slicing up nicel shaped and reeded pine mouldings for stacking the bits together with less exciting looking cheaper pine mouldings.

Stacked moulding frames can be a very helpful way of creating very nice looking larger profiles at a cost that enables you to make a little bit more on jobs that would otherwise be a lot tighter on resulting profit margins. Many left over bits get re-used as wood which can be cut to size as spacers, or whatever. Very little of this wood gets wasted and the bandsaw has more than paid for it's self quite quickly.

I make up and sell some ready made frames, often using left over lengths of moulding and where appropriate add spacers made from my left over pine off cuts, which generally creates useful extra interest from the customers. Rather ordinary looking ready made frames usually just don't sell, because they look too much like cheap mass market chain store fodder.

Foot fall is a lot less than 10 years ago, so I have to be more creative to generate the impulse sales, which in tern creates more of that woody smell that customers like. I've got several large bits of secondhand mirror glass and make up small mirrors with shelves, which tend to sell to customers looking for affordable presents. Again the important factors are price, not too bulky to carry away and as usual they do need to look somewhat special.

I slice bits off from larger well shaped mouldings to make the shelf brackets to support the selves and this save a lot of time and effort in making these mirror frames. If you can make these a something that is quick and easy, there's no point. The money is in the quick and easy bit, there are also some very cost effective pine mouldings about if you don't mind keeping an eye open for the worthwhile prices. And it all adds to that nice woody smell when customers come in.

Back on topic

one of my pet hates at the moment is people not replying emails, when they ask you a question - what price?, can you?, is it possible? when can you? etc , I reply fairly quickly, but never hear a thing again, not even a "Thank you"

got another one, and it's one of my biggest at the moment

My order from a supplier in London, who uses Tuffnells, seem to get lost, not scanned or held up in the London depot , don't seem to get as many problem with other suppliers who use Tuffnells, so I'm going to spend the Christmas break, sourcing their mouldings from other suppliers, if I can't find them elsewhere I going to drop them from my collection

so pi$$ed off with this situation

I think there was a comment in another post re the change, but whoever no delivers R&H mouldings (used to be Tufnells) are driving me bonkers. Had so many breakages, including the loss of the entire 3m length of the rebate.

Last week, had a big delivery whilst i was out. My wife asked if he could help carry it just inside the door, and once in, whilst she still had hold of her end, he dropped his end from over 2 foot above the ground. If they are happy to treat them like that in front of a customer, no wonder they arrive damaged.

I have spoken with R&H who will credit etc, but when you need moulding, that is no help.

Nick

The Christmas rush is a bad time for deliveries, because the couriers take on lots of temporary staff, who resent working so hard for such useless wages and are not answerable for their own actions. Are they going to check that they sent it to the right place? Probably not! Handle things with care? I would not count on it.

This is the time of year, when your moulding arrive on the roof rack of an old escort estate in the pouring rain, don't laugh I'm not joking! One year the moulding arrived with the packaging soaked in scotch wiskey from an adjacent package and dirt from the bottom of the truck. The driver thought it was funny!

It's not just this time of year, I'm getting it all year, I would say 3 out of 5 delivers from this supplier I have problem with,

I try not to order stuff to close to Christmas. I just don't need the hassle.

Like, Steve, it is all the time with time with this new delivery company. Tuffnells with R &H at least were great.

To be fair....

I had a delivery recently from R&H and the driver was great. He had a gearbox on his truck (not the one in the transmission)
and whoever loaded it failed to drain the oil. Result - all my moulding packs had a liberal coating of oil. He said I ought to refuse
the whole lot. He was a bit exasperated about it. But I knew how R&H pack stuff and thought I'd chance it. Besides, I was eager to
start chopping it up.
As it transpired the oil had been soaked up very well by the corrugated and only a tiny bit on one end of a stick was oily.

I often (or used to) get regular occurrences of detachable sight-edge syndrome on R&H mouldings. A24 in particular. The mill appears
to have addressed the issue recently by altering the design slightly. I save stuff like that and rip it down on my table saw. Add a small
moulding on the inside to recreate the rebate. Totally new and unique profile.