Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

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Not your average framer
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Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

I like really nice driftwood style mouldings, unfortunately a lot of the mass produce one's are not very realistic. Can anyone suggest any really decent one's please. Manking my own driftwood mouldings seems a lot of bother! Getting the graining even from one piece of wood to another with a rotary wire brush does not seem to be very easy, so something not made by hand might be much better, when both sides of the corner joints are a better match.

Thanks.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by fitz »

I find customers really like the driftwood range from Lion. L2186. It’s very popular and cuts very well imo.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Fitz,

Yes it is quite nice. I like it a lot, but it becomes quite pricey when I i try to add a worthwhile mark up on top of it's cost price! Historically, I've always sold a reasonable about of driftwood mouldings, I'm nowhere near the sea and describe them a rutic cottage style and this help to create a little bit more relevent sales interest, since the are is full of old cottages. The same moulding was at one time available from several other suppliers at one time. Simon still do it a's their Minnisota range, I bought one length to try it out and I must have sold the frame that made from it as I no longer have it. I made a couple of smaller frame rims from the left overs and did not get around to putting glass and backing boards into them. When I get all the clutter in my shop sorted I'll need to pop them the in my window.

Lion mouldings tend to be towards the top end of the price range, but in this case Lion and Simons are not particularly that far apart of their prices, which is a little surprising! I have even considered splitting this sort of moulding on my table saw to my two lengths of a narrower moulding at a worth profit a more popular size for small cottaged., but to date I have not tried this. Perhaps I need to try this! Mant of the cheaper driftwood mouldings just look at bit cheap and not very classy to me. I like frames to look like an older and classer style. Customers are definitely much more particular about what they choose to buy in the last few years, or otherwise they go to the cheaper shops instead. Some of the cheaper shops are also raising their game a bit too, so what I sell needs always to look like something much better and with a little extra class as well!

I am not so opposed to using factory finished moulding as you might thnk, when appropriate and split wider factory finished moulding to make two matching narrower mouldings can make surprisingly good sense, when customer prefer somethng narrower for a fairly small cottage, of which there are many around here. It's not actually particularly difficult to cut the extra rebate using the table saw and to plan the sawn surfaces in the rabate which an electric planner. As long as it still makes financial sense, it is sometimes something that I find worth doing.

Mark.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Fitz,

I think that the nicely beaded edges and a really nice bit of class to this particular moulding, I would even go as far to say that it a something of a timeless look about it. I used to buy some of the flat pine drift wood mouldings from Simons and they used to be steady sellers at one time, but I never thought that they looked particularly classy and they often have knots breaking out into the edges. I always discarded the pieces where to knots break out on to the moulding edges as I don't think that that looks like it is of a quality, which I what to be known for. As a result, I used up my left over pieces after geting rid of the bad knots to make pine driftwood ready made frames to sell in the window.

Quite often the thickness of the wood was not always the same at the mitred corner joint and it was necessary to handfinish them to look saleable. I still have a couple of lengths of this moulding left and I will still need to use this up, but realisticly I think that it time that I moved on the something which looks more classy, as I think that I need a more relelent look to interest the customers a bit more. Driftwood not only work well for me, but it's something which you dont see in the cheap shops at all, so it's not something which customers look upto as chear poor quality stuff. I'm thinking that maybe I get some of the moulding you have suggested, slice it down the middle, add a rebate to the piece needing a rebate and re-finish the sawn edges.

Thanks for the suggestion, it's a good one!
Mark.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by fitz »

Cheers Mark..it is expensive but my customers seem happy to pay the ever increasing prices for this and similar mouldings. I don’t have the experience or machinery to split such mouldings but I can see the potential especially with the really wide range.👍
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Fitz,

I ticks a lot of the right boxes! It's certainly not a "run of the mill" look, it has a bit of an older style look, which is definitely something I look for and any off cuts of a usable size would be usable to make some smaller frames, which I think would be easy to sell. Also it would cut down quite easily into two identical half width moulding as well. I think that I'm sorted!
Thanks,
Mark.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by prospero »

I have one regular job that yields a lot of short bits of ½" pine moulding. I save these as it makes a great driftwood after
going-over with a wire brush and a couple of coats of paint. Quick waxing - Bingo. I did a set of photos (12 I think). Made a
slight hole in the pile. :lol:
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Ho Peter,

I have a rather vicious rotary wire brush mounted on a small angle grinder. The problem is controlling the depth of the brushing, which is far from an exact thing and it always goes too deep and the ends of the length of wood, so the last inch, or two are unusable. I also produce quite a lot of frames using a particular Oak moulding for a rugular trade customers and I get quite a lot of left over pieces. And I sometimes turn some into Oak driftwood, which really looks great. I hold the moulding in the jaws of my Black and Decker workmate, while I am attacking it with the rotary wire brush.

I have a favorite match pot chalky emulsion colour which like to brush into the driftwood texture and wipe of, I think that it looks great. I'm that sure what the customers think of this colour, but I still sell a few without much trouble. Some pieces of Oak are not a good colour match to each other and when this happens usually mix up a little bit of Yellow ochre mixed with raw umber. Sometimes I add a touch of black to these two colours, if I think it need it. I have not seen Oak driftwood anywhere else, so I figure that some quite different should be a good thing to attract the customers.

It's a really agresive wire brush and produces quite a deep driftwood effect. I do it with pine as well and it really helps to be able to do things with pine that are not just the usual boring "run of the mill" stuff. I do quite an interesting two mouldings thick and thin thing as stacked moulding frames and somtimes this gets done as a driftwood sort of the with some of my favorite colour of chalky emulsion in the driftwood groove. Pre-colouring the pine before adding the chalky emulsion adds a bit of extra interest, which always looks a bit different, I think!
Mark Lacey

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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

Can I ask you, what is your favorite wood type for making your own driftwood mouldings. I havea lot of trouble finding the right wire brushes to get the right result. I don't really want to do it with a dremel, be cause my right hand co-ordination is totally rubbish following my stroke.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by prospero »

Hi Mark.

Any wood really, but pine gives a more 'wild' look as it has hard rays and the softer wood between tends to be roughed
up more. This can be a very nice effect. Obeche is more even-grained.

If you are using a Dremel with a milling tool or sanding drum lack of coordination could actually work to your advantage.
I have just got a cordless Dremel and it can be held in both hands without fighting with the power cord. The Dremeling
produces a very extreme type of distressing. Works better on wide, flat planks of 'construction grade' pine.

driftwoodframe001.jpg
I like frames with a bit of a 'face' rather than flat colours which tend to look a bit dead.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi Peter,

It looks to me like it might take a long time to do. I have been trying to stick to things which can manage fairly quickly, as I am still struggling to do most things in a reasonable amount of time. I have worked out that I need to be able to charge £1 per minute for my active working time, for things to make sense. Unfortunately, I need to keep having breaks quite often as I tire very easily, but I have to admit that I think I might enjoy doing this. I already have an electric scroll saw, will a power take off and a big set of dremel tools to fit into the chuck at the end of a fairly long flexible coupling, which drives the rotary tools, so this is someting I can try out when i have got things sorted out.

Thank's for the suggestion, hopefully it will prove to be something which It can easily do!
Mark.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by prospero »

I may take time. Not too long a time. But that apart from that it is highly enjoyable. :clap:

I do the lengths pre-joining by clamping them in a workmate. This is two frames....
planks001_small.jpg

** Simons do (did) a nice range of driftwoods. :)
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by vintage frames »

That is just - very clever.
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Re: Not that many driftwood mouldings are all that special, does anyone know any good ones?

Post by Not your average framer »

Simons still do their basic pine driftwood, but I think that I moved on a bit as want something with a bit more class for me future needs. I feel that the market has moved on and I need to move on too! Part of my original plan was to buy basic bare pine mouldings turn them into driftwood moulding using a rotary wire brush, but getting an even effect is easier said than done. Having said that it still could be part of the plan, at least converting basic pine mouldings into driftwood has the advantage the these mouldings already are produced with an existing rebate. Although I have a good range of woodworking machinery, I still much prefer to manage without using it when I don't need to. I've been looking at the Rutlards website and they have a beading router bit, but it needs a deep enough sight edge to be able to add a beaded edge to the moulding, so perhaps not immediately relevent, but I'm still thinking about it.

The beaded edge on the Lion driftwood moulding definitely looks quite classy. but I need to control my costs to be sure to get a worthwhile profit margin. Driftwood has previously been a good market for me, because of there being so many ancient cottages around me, I've got a few driftwood frames and moulding still in stock and I am still expecting this to be a good ongoing market for me. However, costs, pricing and profits are still going to be important to make this worthwhile. If i'm not careful, I will not make a decent profit from using up my various pine moulding left overs and off cuts and making driftwood frames is a useful way to make some of these left overs into some thing easily saleable. I still tryng to workout how to better control the uniformitivity of the result that I can obtain from using the rotary brush and the angle grinder, but I'm not there yet!
Mark Lacey

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