Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

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Not your average framer
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Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

For a long time, I have been wanting to make the old fashioned looking but jointed frames and this will require cutting back the front face of the moulding a little on the horizontal moulding lengths to accomodate the rebate lips of the vertical moulding legnths. So far I am considering two possible ways to do this, either with a router on a routing table, or using an electric planer in an appropriate jig. I am already thinking about avoiding breakout at the end of the cut. I am wondering if any one already creates such frames and has any advice about making these.

I am intending to buy a Festool domino joiner, probably next week and plan to join the corners with hidden 4mm thick domino loose tenons. I am anticipating that butt jointed frames might attract a reasonable level of interest particularly from a interior designer friend who is always scouring the secondhand market for this type of frame. According to her the are very popular with both interior design project customers and customers in her shop as well. She has to pay quite a lot to buy butt jointed frames at online auctions and as a result has to price them quite high to sell them.

She is interested in finding someone who can offer a reliable regular supply and I'm thinking that this could be me! So far, I have not produced any such frames, so this is something completely new for me, however I have a good feeling that this could be a good thing for my shop as well. I am thinking that I will need to make a jig which supports the end of cut to prevent breakout. I am thinking that joining the corners with hidden domino joints should help to facilitate good speed of prodution. I might even consider dowelling through one side of the joint for cosmetic effect if customers like that.

Thinks in anticipation,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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prospero
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by prospero »

Most of these will be flat frames in the 'rustic' style. One way is to use thin pine cladding as a face. This is available
8mm thick. You do have to rip the tongue and groove edges off though....
This is fixed (No need to join it) to a conventionally joined framed made from PSE of similar wood. The lower frame should
be a bit narrower, thus forming a rebate. It's a simple matter to glue the face to the under frame. A few shallow screws inserted
from the back will hold it all tight until the glue sets.
The staggered join adds strength and the laminated construction adds to the overall stability.

After that, maybe 'distress' it a bit. Dark stain and a good coat of wax and a buffing up with a yellow duster. :D
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Peter,

I had not thought about doing it like that. Would the pine clading be the same width as the other pine frame, or is the pine cladding usually wider? I was thinking of the side profile being a bit thicker than just the relatively thin pine clading. Of course I can easily trim the pine cladding ant the edge of the other frame to match and wizz it through the surface planner to get a relatively seemless outer edge, which would look reasonably nice after hand finishing.

Thanks for an interesting way of doing things! I think that it might be a better method than what I was originally thinking. If the pine cladding and the back section were made out of the pitch pine left over from replaing two doors from my side paasage way, I would not need a rebated moulding at all and it would have the added advantage of being able to be promoted as pitch pine. I still think that I would like to use the hidden domino joints, so I can tell customers that the frames are constructed with hidden mortice and tenon joints.

Just setting the inner edge of the rear moulding away from the front of the front face cladding would effectively create the necessary rebate and everything would simple to assemble using the dominos and a little bit of glue and band clamps. I am thinking that this could look great and the pitch pine would give it a quite distinctive look as well. I'm probably going to be able to make the cladding on the front face thick enough to accept some headless pins from the rear face of the frame to hold it together while the glue is setting, which would be quicker and less noticable than screws, so I'm thinking that this could now be sorted.

Thanks Peter,
Mark.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
fusionframer
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by fusionframer »

"I can tell customers that the frames are constructed with hidden mortice and tenon joints"
.

I wouldn't tell customers they are mortice and tenon joints, domino joints will be loose tenons. Only reason i say this is you can get some muppet customer who will say they have given a false description and cause trouble.

A friend made some cupboard doors with a domino and on the quote, stated tenon and mortice joints and the people found out he was doing it with a domino and caused a real stink.

Not many customers around, but better to be careful.
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Nick,

Oh, I never thought of it like that. I can still cut perfectly good tenons, even after my stroke, but I don't have two perfectly working hands since the stroke so I don't know what to do about cutting the mortices with my limited functionaliy and limited strength of my right hand. I was thinking of buying a morticer at one time and I'm really trying not to be beaten by this. Is there another way for me to cut a mortice, when only one hand which works properly in all aspcts? I know that I'm a bit slow and limited in what I can do following my stroke, but I believe there's still a viable way that I can do, I just don't know what it is yet!
Mark Lacey

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prospero
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by prospero »

It's all about the look. The average person would not care if it was a mortise and tenon or even know what
that was. The main thing is that it looks like a piece of homespun joinery. You could add to the effect in many
ways. Putting in dowels on the corners so they provide interest and a decorative effect on the face. Make nail holes
by banging a nail in and pulling it out. Knocking the edges off with a rasp or a Dremel+sanding drum. You are not aiming
to make it look like a precision piece of cabinet work. More something that someone has knocked up in the shed. :P

It's all about creating an illusion.

I wouldn't recommend fixing the face pieces with a headless nailer. There would be little or no clamping action, Screws would
pull the pieces tight to the benefit of the glue bond, and it would probably need a bit a 'persuasion' to hold it flat. Otherwise
it would need a lot of clamps.

** This would be an ideal frame to go to town with 'weathered' paint effects. :clap:

I'm half-tempted to have a go myself. :lol:
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by fusionframer »

I agree that with Prospero, it is the appearance that matters and that you can't tell whether it is made with proper mortice and tenon joints, loose mortices or even glued and screwed if you can hide the screw.

My point was just to be careful on description just because of the outside chance you get a troublemaker who wants to cause trouble.

If you get a festool domino, then make the joints with that and then describe as made with loose tenon joints.

If a customer asks, then you can explain and also tell them that bespoke kitchen doors are pretty much all made this way. They will still seem "special" to the customer, but you are giving an accurate description.

I wouldn't bother with a morticer to be honest. The bench top machines are c**p and underpowered. I make all my windows and doors with mortice and tenon joints, but for wardrobe and kitchen doors, i use loose tenons.

Nick
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Not your average framer
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks guys,

I've had a bit of time to think this over and I will consider making the bas frame still with butt joints, but with pocket hole joints. I plan to be using the front face cladding to conseal the pocket hole screws.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
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prospero
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by prospero »

Just a point......

How would you arrange the corner joints?

Two long rails at the sides with two connecting horizontals?

Catherine Wheel style?

My instinct is for a long horizontal rail at the bottom and a short one at the top. 8)


** Why the pocket hole fixings. Why not just underpin it? :roll:
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

I've already got the pocket hole jig. To be honest I have not found it to be as useful as it is made out to be, if you follow the instructions for setting it up before using it, the screws are not correctly positioned and you need to ignore the instructions that they give you in order to get it right. Personally, I don't have much good to sat about pocket hole jigs so far. Although I don't much like the jig, the drill bit and the screws can be quite useful. Ithink that idea of joining the rear section of the butt joined frames is a sensible way of doing this and the front face cladding with hide the pocket holes and screws completely. My pocket hole jig is the one thay is available from Rutlands, I suspect that the ones from Kreg should be much more straight foward to use.

I an now feeling very happy about this way of doing things as think that this will work really well. My thanks to everyone who has contributed their ideas and know how to getting there. I am still planning to get the smaller and cheaper version of the Festool domino jointer, as I still feel that it ticks so many of the right boxes. It will give me a better way of joining quality hardwood frames without struggling to get underpinner wedges into some extremely hard wood. I actually believe that domino joinery will be a big time saver for me on certain jobs. Domino joinery can give me quite a lot of flexibility doing a variety of different jobs. This will include securing shelves within box frames and display cabinets, also for seemlessly extending the depth of normal depth frames to make them into really nice deep box frames.

Small cabinets with doors has been a potential growth area for me. I've only produced a limited number of these so far and I have not been quite as keen to do these as much as I could have, because I am not fully set up to produce these in the most practical way. The doino jointer makes this job very much simpler and straight forward to do and hopefully would also help with the profitability of such jobs. I am not very likely to be considering a bicuit joiner myself because the biscuits are much wider than the smaller dominos and as such have a minimum size of wood which they are best suited to. I am anticipating the possibilty of cutting down the length of the smaller dominos to use them within mitred corners on smaller oak mouldings as a better way of joining smaller profile hardwood moulding.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Pter,

In answer to your question, the side rails of the frame wiil be full length from the top to the bottom. I have everything that I need to clamp these flat and on each corner joint to ensure good alignment for gluing. I shall be able to drill the pocket holes in to the horizontal rails and putting the frames together afterwards as I intend to make these in small batches. As usual, speed is a real big deal, with my limited mobility of my right hand and right arm. Speedy ways of doing things are the main way for me function these days.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Romanf345
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Romanf345 »

Hello,

Have you considered using lap joints? Very easy to cut with a table saw or router and will be much easier on you, then wielding that 7 pound Domino around the shop.
Not your average framer
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Not your average framer »

Thanks Romanf345,

Well my butt joints were always intended to be a little bit like having joints anyway, beause part of one piece of moulding needs to fit under the sight edge of an adjoining piece of wood otherwise the front face, looks a bit strange! So yes, it is a sort of halving joint and not the easiest joint to use with a domino jointer, but there is a way of doing this, as I don't want to use any visble fixings!

This is not particularly difficult as I can adjust how deep the domino jointer can drill in the wood!
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
Romanf345
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Re: Old fashioned style butt jointed frames.

Post by Romanf345 »

Here is an example of a real primitive frame made from picket fence wood…very cool. Got this from a website that like to work with weird wood. Beehappygraphics.com
4A42139C-50A5-471E-A23A-84C1BE0011D9.jpeg
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