Cutting gothic and trefoil relief mounts.

[Not your average framer]

I am just wondering if anyone has any idea how difficult it will be cutting gothic and trefoil multi-layer mounts which will be cut from grey board and glued together, before fitting into rectangular frames and hand finished to produce candle sconces. For me, I will mostly be doing this for my own amusement, but who know someone may see them in my shop windows and might want to buy one, although I'm not sure how likely this maybe.

I have a Fetcher Terry 1100 oval and round mountcutter, complete with the usual attachments, including the glass cutting wheel, so I've got a very accurate oval and round mount cutter, which is perhaps a good start. This is just something to do, during the lock down and avoid running out of challenging things to do.

My thanks in anticipation,
Mark

[Steve N]

I think it's possible, even with manual cutters, just have to go slow and lift the blade at the right time, best to mark it out first, just Googled gothic and trefoil and got these diagrams to show how to mark out, good compass should see you okay
Do it with layers of greyboard or even mountcard and they will look great if painted like stone

trefoil how.jpg (47.13 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

trefoil 2.jpg (51.05 KiB) Viewed 1997 times

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Steve,

I have made these before and I already know how to mark out the different styles of both gothic and the different styles of trefoil and I used to carve stuff like this in wood, but cutting them out of greyboard is somewhat different. I am thinking that part of the difficulty will be how to determine the exact position for location the oval mountcutter relative to the board that is being cut, as there is no provision for determining the centre of each circle to be cut.

I'm still trying to figure out, what will be the best way to go about this, as the centres for each circle will need to be the same on different layers of greyboard for the same relief mount, otherwise any errors, no matter how small will be extremely obvious to the naked eye. If I can do this accurately and repeatably using the stop settings on the oval cutter, then I am thinking that it may be possible to work to a step by step list of stop setting and other settings on the oval moutcutter and this could make it possible to make batches in a fairly short time scale.

The only other question is whether there is a worthwhile market for stuff like this? My thinking is that if there was much of a market for things like this, that the market would already be being exploited and I would have seen more of this sort of thing being around as a result. A lot of the buildings around my location, are generally quite cottage like and to a large extent, is the more rustic look that is noticably popular around here. So I'm guessing that the local market for gothic might not be particularly all that worth the effort, but perhaps I shall be pleasantly surprised.