Creating black hand finished hockey and cushion profile frames.

[Not your average framer]

I not really greatly impressed with the modern day factory finished black mouldings in both hockey and cushion profiles. There seems to be two varieties of these availabe at present. One has a thick and rather hard black coating usually covering some rather poor quality, often finger jointed wood. The finish is often quite hard and resists abrasion fairly well, but chips like crazy the moment you try to cut it with a Morso. Touching in the corners after cutting and joining it is also no fun either. The other type has usually quite reasonable quality wood, but a bit soft and makes less strong joints. The finish is usually thinner and less resisting of abrasions, but overall it a nice looking finish.

I'm not a big fan of hand finished "run of the mill" black moldings, but finding decent quality mouldings in this category is a pointless search. I'm making some display chevrons today using some nicely shaped mouldings of the right shape and sizes and they are looking very presentable to look at, but I wondering how many others are doing the same and how durable theses finishes are turn out for anyone else? Most customers are only wanting to pay peanuts for basic black mouldings, which I am thinking is the reason why the better quality black mouldings of bygone years are long gone because it's all about cheapness these days and I guess the decent stuff of about 20+ years ago is gone of ever!

So, I've started of with some nice profinres in pine from Rose & Hollis. I'm applying a thinly brushed out couple of coat of a good quality black acrylic paint, which is then smoothed down with a very limited amount of Black Bison dark oak wax and 0000 grade steel wood. After this the remains of the Black Bison wax is removed leaving a very smooth painted surface after which I have applied a coat of Polyvine black acrylic varnish, which is then smoothed down again with the Black Bison dark oak wax and the steel wool. The results look amazing, but I've got nagging thoughts about the durability of the finish. So I'm thinking about adding some Caschemite in to the mix to try and get a bit more hardness in to the finish.

Is anyone else doing anything similar and do they have any suggestions?
Thanks in anticipation,
Mark.

[GeoSpectrum]

Thin black frames often equate to cheap in customers minds so you will need to be sure to be able to sell them at a price that justifies the work put into them.

[Not your average framer]

Hi Alan,

I think so too, but at least I'm giving them a choice! I have come to the conclusion that the cheap option that I will be offering, will probably be some black Polcore mouldings as I think that these are more consistent and better to joint that most cheap and in my opinion not so chearful black mouldings. I won't feel so bad about selling Polcore, or Emafil stuff as it probably makes a better job these days.

[prospero]

Building up a solid black on pine or obeche is quite time consuming. Typically you need multiple coats of
primer to obtain a smooth base and a lot of sanding, followed by 2/3 coats of black acrylic.
This needs to be waxed for the best effect.

Using oak or ash is quicker as the grain is more attractive, so you don't have to conceal it.
Two coats of acrylic plus a quick wax'n'buff does the trick.

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Peter,

I'm thinking about that too! I'll be going for oak. I currently knocking up some samples using a few pine mouldings. Even the smaller oak mouding are a often not ideally priced for this purpose. I've only found one small enough and suitable moulding at a worthwhile price so far. I am only ordering qualities where I am capable of moving stock around when it arrives, as I have difficulty moving excessive weights. Hopefully this moulding will be in stock when I try to order it!

Mark.

[Not your average framer]

On the sample chevron I have made so far, I have not used any primer at all. The moulding has a nice smooth machined finish as I've just put two coats of a fairly thick black acrylic paint uo to this as smooth thin coats and when dry smoothed the acrylic down with 0000 garade steel wool and a very limited amount of wax. It looks pretty nice and smooth, just like this! I know that batches of pine may vary, but the current pine that I am using is close grained and is nicely machined. If later batches are not as good, I'll probably seal the grain with some shellac first! When I'm making larger lengths of this moulding, I'ill apply the paint in light coats using a nylon pan shinner as this seems to work very well for me! This still needs to be a really quick and easy finish, if it's is to be produced at a sensible price. The same moulding is also produced in oak, but it's quite a bit more expensive, so not so ideal.

I've also made a half chevron length, which is a fairly reasonable looking oak finish, using just paint and coloured wax. It obscures enough wood grain as to be not too obvious that it's actually pine. I was pleasantly surprised that it looks like a reasonably up market finish! I bought enough of this moulding to make a few other samples in different finishes. I'm not sure what these will jet. I'm not good at hidding the wood grain on plain white finishes, so if I do a white finish it will only be a plain lime washed finish, with a little bit of the grain peeping through. This looks really natural and some customers like it, but as the fashion these days is for a smooth solid white, it's only certain customers that go for it. This does not bother me anyway, so that's o.k. I will only have time to produce a few different samples anyway and I need to move on to other tasks as soon as possible.

[Not your average framer]

I noticed that no one made any comment to my thoughts about using polcore narrow black mouldings for cheaper narrow black frames. I'm kind of thinkinging that at least the finish is going to be of consistant quality and there usually not a lot of work to produce narrow black polcore mouldings.

Any comments?
Thanks,
Mark.

[GeoSpectrum]

I’d be waiting to see what the market wants before doing too much.

[Not your average framer]

Thanks Alan,

I need to restock the shop a bit, so I'll buy half a dozen lengths anyway. I have a customer who keeps bringing in quantities of photos to be framed in narrow black frames, so they won't get wasted.