Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

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Not your average framer
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Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

I have one particular moulding, which joins well at both the inside and outside edges , but there's usually a gap that appears in the middle. I don't get this problem at all with other mouldings and I even have another moulding, which is very similar in shape and size, but this other moulding joins perfectly every time.

I am thinking about wiping some coloured paste wax into the gap and heating it with a hot air gun to set the wax. This often causes a bit of shrinkage, but it saves time, however I am open to suggestions regarding alternative waxes, which may have less shrinkage than I might be getting with the usual Black Bison wax.

I have some of the original hard wax filler, which Lion used to do, but it's really slow to use for batch work and I want to keep the speed of working still quite fast. I'm hoping to do about 25 frames when I go down to the workshop after the hot day has cooled down a bit, taking too much time filling corner will slow me down a lot.

Thanks,
Mark
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm just wondering if anyone mixes their own wood filter. I've got a few ideas myself, but I've not tried and tested anything at all to date! I think that it's a fairly well known things that oil paints can be used to colour waxes, but what do you use to thicken up the wax. I suppose one of the most obvious things would be dry powdered pigments.

Unfortunately I don't have on hand the colour of pigment that I would need, so I'm doing a bit of lateral thinking instead. I can probably colour the wax to the right colour using a bit of oil paint from a tube and I've got plenty of tubes of oil paint, so getting the right colour sounds o.k. As I think about it my bench top belt sander is not connected to the vacuum cleaner, so there's some really finely powdered sawdust that's free for the taking.

I'm guessing that if I mix some sawdust into the wax and adjust the amount of oil paint accordingly, I might just end up with a wax, oil paint and sawdust filler, which hopefully will harden using a little heat from a hot air gun and scarcely shrink at all as it hardens when the solvent in the wax evaporates due to the heat from the hot air gun.

Does that sound like a reasonable idea? Has anyone tried anything similar?

Thank in anticipation,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Justintime »

For prefinished mouldings I'm using CC Paste and CJ Paste, they're both very similar consistency. Have a damp paper towel on hand. put the filler on each corner and the idea is by the time you get to the last one, the first one has dried enough to gently wipe off the excess, sometimes I have to leave it a few more minutes. One framer I met had a tube of quick drying smooth filler in white and dabbed some colour paste to match over the top. This looked pretty quick and easy, but I have a lot of the pastes to get through until I try this!
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Justin,

It sounds interesting. I have not bought any corner touch up fillers since about the year 2000. All the little tins still have plenty in them, but I end up not knowing what's on the market these days I did not used to pay much attention to how long these things take to do at one time, but I think that the time element is a lot more important these days, now that efficiency is so much the way to do things.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Justintime »

I have to add that CC paste is my preference, it's a slightly thicker consistency but comes in bigger tubes, so I bought the rest in CC paste. Lions stock them.
Justin George GCF(APF)
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Justin,

I must admit to being quite interseted after reading about your obvious enthusiam for these fillers. I am assuming that I probably don't need to buy the complete range of colours and was just wondering, which are the colours that you find most useful. I won't be going for and metallic colours as I am already more than well provided for in metallic colours already.

For some strange reason the troublesome moulding is working much better today. I'm thinking that it's probably got something to do with the fact that I'm mostly producing smaller frames today and any warping of the moulding over length is likely to be less obvious on shorter sections of moulding. I can't say that any of the moulding looks warped, but I can't think of much else to suggest as the cause of the problem.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

As a matter of interest, I like some of the wax based metallic touch up fillers such as Goldfinger and the like, because I can mix them with a little white spirit and run a subtile gold effect along grooves in mouldings and when I like the result, just evaporate the white spirit with a little heat and seal it with a little acrylic varnish. It looks quite classy on ribbed black painted mouldings, if the effect is used quite sparingly.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Steve N »

I keep a range of tester pots from B&Q for touching up coloured frames, and for white I have a pot with white emulson paint which has thickened a bit like toothpaste, and just use that then wipe off with a damp paper towel
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Justintime »

Not your average framer wrote: Fri 07 Aug, 2020 6:41 pm Thanks Justin,

I must admit to being quite interseted after reading about your obvious enthusiam for these fillers. I am assuming that I probably don't need to buy the complete range of colours and was just wondering, which are the colours that you find most useful. I won't be going for and metallic colours as I am already more than well provided for
Sadly my enthusiasm has been fuelled by necessity! I often find there are gaps to fill with the cheaper mouldings, as you say twists and warps...
Black ,white, brown are my go-to colours, with a dab of goldfingers on metallics/gilts.
Justin George GCF(APF)
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Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks justin,

Very much appreciated.

Mark
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Nice easy way to fill gaps in corner joint.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thank Steve,

I like the match pots too!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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