Width variation

[Trecelyn]

Hi

I was wondering if anyone else has had a problem with lengths of moulding where the width varies on the same piece? I have just had the misfortune of wasting two lengths in trying to construct one frame!

Best

T.

[Rainbow]

Not the width, but I had an instance recently where the height varied - in the middle of the length.

Fortunately it was a small picture and I could use cuts from both ends which were the same height.

[GeoSpectrum]

I get small variations tweet orders. Not much, but enough to mess things up if you don’t notice.

[pramsay13]

Occasionally I have an issue with width, height, warped pieces, but if there are issues they get sent back.

This was one that I made up before I realised the front face was quite different but I got replacement lengths.

[Not your average framer]

I don't really know whether problems like this are getting more common, or less common. I've tended to stop usng any particular moulding with whch I have experienced problems and as I have stopped using problem moulding, it seems to have helped! Poor quality wood is more troublesome, mainly with obeche! I do my best to avoid finger jointed mouldings completely. Finger jointed mouldings are a really serious quality issue for me and probably for plenty of others as well. There are suppliers who try very hard to avoid quality issues, but these are often the most expensive moulding suppliers.

For myself, being located in an economically hard hit part of Devon, I encounter a certain amount of price resistance, therefore really expensive mouldings are not really where it is at for me! I wonder how many suppliers consider how much defective finger jointed wood can impact framer's business reputations! Customers just don't understand why we use such poor quality mouldings and it reflects badly up on us and loses us repeat business due to disappointed customers not comng back.

We get the blame not our suppliers and suppliers who keep supplying this finger jointed rubbish are playing with fire and may find that they get their fingers burnt in time! Do they imagine that it's an unrelated thing that some many framers are reconsidering what suppliers are offering and relying on hand finishing instead, to protect their hard won reputations. Good quality framing supplies and mouldings are not optional at all, but in these troubled times, good quality is the bedrock up on which businesses wanting to survive are built.

I hope that some of our suppliers are taking notice of this!

[Rainbow]

Customers just don't understand why we use such poor quality mouldings and it reflects badly up on us and loses us repeat business due to disappointed customers not comng back.

I don't understand why customers would know about it. It may not cause any delay to the job (which it didn't in my case), but even if it did, the customer wouldn't necessarily know the exact reason for the delay.

And just because one length is poor quality doesn't necessarily mean that the entire product line is poor quality.

[Not your average framer]

I've had customers return a couple of frames where the finger joint had failed after a while. One of them was a Far East import moulding with a thick gesso coating, I think it was mostly the gesso holding the frame together. I felt quite embrassed at the time! I also don't like wood stainded mouldings, where it is possible to see the transition in the wood grain through the wood stain. I have on occasions started using new mouldings, which to start with these mouldings are not finger joined,but after a while I order some more of the same mouldings, only to find that the supplier has switched to a finger jointed version of the same moulding.

The moulding has the same order code, but it has been cheapened. Is it the same quality of moulding? Often the quality of finish has changed as well, at the same time. Why is this supposed to be acceptable? This is why I like to be hand finishing as much as I do! At least I get to control the quality! I stopped using one particular moulding, because they started finger jointing the wood it contained and every other piece was a sub standard grade of wood which would not even cut on the Morso to an acceptable standard. It was a 12mm black cushion moulding, the black gesso was originally o.k., but as the wood used became spongey the gesso was increasingly dfficult to get a decent cut on the Morso!

After this bad batch, I never ordered this particular moulding again! I am a relatively small volume framer in a small rural town, which is not particularly busy these days. Car parking is quite difficult in more recent times. The town had three different banks in the town, now it has none! Anything which harms my reputation, such as sub-standard mouldings is harmful to my business. The town has it's own Facebook page and customers, don't come and see you about problems anymore, but just complain on the town's Facebook page and I potentially get less customers. I just won't order so many mouldings, which I am not happy with, as I want to be known for high class framing. We are about to lose more parking spaces, as they are going to turn some into electric car charging points, so yet again this will mean less foot fall.

So what' the answer? I have a strong emphasis on oak frames and making my own rustic frames! This is a strongly rural area and I can sell the rustic stuff fairly easily, but a lot of the mass produced rustic looking mouldings no longer sell as well, customers have igher expectation that that. I regularly buy one particular oak moulding for making frames for a local photographer, he is a trade customer and these frames need to be produced to a price. Some lengths of oak have natural defects and I use these bits to make rustic oak frames, these bits and pieces tend to need a bit of hand finished to make all four moulding pieces in one frame a good match and look nice as rustic frames.

Some of the lengths of this oak moulding have been comig in as increasingly larger amounts of almost colourless oak bits within otherwise normal looking lengths and my existing customers does not like these bits, they don't tend to have any of the natural rustic defects, so I need to work out how I am going to use them. Staining them darker does not make them look like decent looking oak. At present, I don't know what to do about this issue, but the quantity of this left over very white oak is building up quite a lot and it makes no sense to waste it, but it needs to be seen to be of desireable quality to be worthwhile, doing anything with it. Am I really fussy about quality! Yes, I think I need to be!

[Justintime]

A lot of the more expensive prefinished mouldings seem to be finger jointed pine, at the moment. I have had no trouble with it at all. I do try not to dovetail router right on a join obviously, but other than that I know not of what you speak!! (I also have no idea of the dire times you speak of, I like many framers I talk to have never been so busy! And I live in the middle of nowhere...)
Trecelyn, do you mean barewood mouldings? If so, I always check the first few inches, as they are often narrower at the beginning, where the length of wood goes through the planer/thicknesser/whatever machine in its production process.

[Trecelyn]

Hi

Trecelyn, do you mean barewood mouldings?

In this particular case it was a finished moulding and unfortunately it was one I really like to use as it's slightly unusual. I also tried a narrower version of the same same profile and a had a little more luck. However, the narrower profile was warped. I think I need to check the deliveries a little more carefully!

"C'est la bl**dy vie" as we say here.

regards

T.

[Justintime]

It's worth photographing the warp and requesting a replacement. I often complain, when it's worth it the time and haven't been refused yet. It may well be just one batch