Wastage continued & RMFs

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cebrooker
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Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by cebrooker »

I know wastage is the burden of framing. I have been working on a new pricing system that basically mean I cut all sheets into half, quarter and eighth of a sheet bits, this means I am getting everything into smaller piles (space is a bit of a premium) and squared up in one go saving time having to do it every job. It also has the added benefit of knowing exactly what my margins etc are. While it might cost a few pounds in extra waste, it will save me keeping sheets knocking about for ages waiting for something to fit that get damaged, faded or bent in the wait! Then anything massive will have to be bought and dealt with specially when I order new mountboard.

Any usable waste I have will be piled into RMFs but on that topic, can someone give me some advice on buying strut backs? I can't find any I would consider to be nice enough quality vs price, the Wessex ones are 'orrible!

Can you all tell me if I am being certifiably moronic with my new idea?

Thanks,
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prospero
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by prospero »

I have never found a good commercially available strutback. By 'good' I mean sturdy and cost effective.

The old stamped-out card ones tend to wilt over time. I don't like the MDF ones with a diagonal prop.
Sometimes you need to fine-tune the length of the prop to account for differing moulding widths.

Lion used to do MDF props-only which used the bar&clip system. Which is pretty robust and allows removal
of the prop. I used to buy them in various sizes and trim them down so the prop came to the edge of the frame.
They worked fine up to about 12x10". I use my last two props last week as it happens... :roll:

Unfortunately they are no longer available. Even the bars and clips are thin on the ground. I think Wessex still do them(?)

Anyroadup, I have a few home-spun jigs and templates. MDF boards in various sizes to locate the holes for the rivets to take
bars. You can drill about 6 boards at once. Then all you have to do is rivet the bars on. I used bif rivets and a hammer. A tedious
job if you are doing a lot. I once did 300 (1200 rivets) at a go. :P Making the flared props is possible on a wall cutter is not-too-difficult
if you make a sloping guide. You just cut a strip and feed it though - flipping on each alternate cut. Make another template to drill
the holes for the clips. (More riveting).

I've seen some elaborate velvet covered backs, well made with a little bits of ribbon to limit the strut movement.
Very nice but definitely up-market price range.

I've also tried the little metal props that you fix to the back. OK to a point, but you need a press to fix them and I'm a
bit iffy as to how they stand up (no pun...) to handling. The plates bite into the MDF and can easily tear out under stress.

Invent a better strutback and people will beat a path to your door. :lol:
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Not your average framer »

As far as I'm aware Simons were just about the last supplier who were doing clip and bar strut backs. I only found out that they were no longer doing then when I tried to order some more earlier in the year. I still have several thousand clips and bars which I got through buying up all the stock of Western Arts in Totnes.

They were a massive business at one time and must have made their own strut backs at some time. I've never much fancied making my own strut backs, but I guess now that you can no longer obtain decent strut backs at all, perhaps I should give the idea of making my own some thought. If I did decide to make my own then the material would be 6mm MDF and I would make them using a small table saw and some home made jigs.

I have been considering producing oak RMF's with turned pegs that fit into pre-drilled holes in the reverse face of the frame. I've had this worked out for some time and maybe I'll get the chance to do this sometime, but it would mean making some really accurate jigs and a pillar drill to get the holes for the pegs in the exact right place and the holes dead square as well.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Jamesnkr »

cebrooker wrote:It also has the added benefit of knowing exactly what my margins etc are. While it might cost a few pounds in extra waste,
You are a picture framer. (Almost certainly) most of your revenue comes from selling time, not things. Margins on stock are almost irrelevant. You don't kneed to know that margin so precisely. Forget about margins and concentrate on pounds per hour, imagine you are charging like a lawyer or accountant. Instead you are costing yourself:

1. Time - in cutting things down into quarter/half sheets; and
2. Waste - as the half board, that you spent time trimming a bit off in order to make it the size of a half board will no longer fit the job that's a fraction larger than a half board, so you need to start a new sheet.
it will save me keeping sheets knocking about for ages
If indeed the time spent above will achieve this, then you may be doing something worth the effort.

As an alternative, why not try to get everything framed with just ten - or even five - different colours/textures of board. White, black, grey, blue and cream, say.

Alternatively, always charge for material by the quarter sheet. So a mount for a postage stamp and a mount for a quarter sheet cost the same; add an eighth of an inch and now it's a half sheet. That way you know your margins. But sometimes you will get a bonus bit of extra margin.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Steve N »

Unless you are selling lots of material at these sizes , then I think IMHO it's a waste of time, materials and in the end money. If you are cutting down full sheets into these sizes, and you are not keeping any full sheets, what happens when you have a job, say 100x70 cm, you have to order in another sheet (or Pack of 5, depending on the supplier)
Admittedly we DO pre-cut a lot of mountcard in to standard size blanks on our CMC, but that is because we run some successful online shops, where we sell packs of 5 , 10 standard size mounts, we have been selling for a number of years, so we know what to pre-cut in what sizes and colours (4 colours White, Ivory,Textured White and Black). All we need to do when an order comes in is pick up the right size blank and colour, stick it on the CMC, then cut the window, pack then post.
But we wouldn't do it that way if we were relying on customers coming into the shop, because most only want one mount, in a special colour to match the picture (which is not a standard size :head: )
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Not your average framer »

cebrooker wrote:While it might cost a few pounds in extra waste, it will save me keeping sheets knocking about for ages waiting for something to fit that get damaged, faded or bent in the wait!
I buy most of my mountboard in quantity to get the best discount and most of the time the mountboard arrives in a special mountboard shipping carton. I have a number of compartments under one of my benches, which accommodate some of my mountboard stock, and most of the rest stays in the shipping carton untill needed. I write the details of what colours are on each particular carton and leave them sitting in the carton until needed, this prevents stock getting damaged and saves loads of space too!

You say that you have not got any space, well neither have I, my shop is really small, but by keeping a lot of my mountboard stock in the cartons they arrived in I can keep a lot of stock in a really cramped and tiny shop. Currently my shop has a mountboard stock of between 600 and 800 full sheets and various off cuts.
cebrooker wrote:Then anything massive will have to be bought and dealt with specially when I order new mountboard.
Most of the mount sizes that I need are for larger and medium mounts. I only cut up and store smaller bits, when they are already too small to be of immediate use and even then, there's a limit to how many small bits of mountboard will ever get used. I'm not sure how useful your idea is going to be for you, but then again my business and your business may be very different businesses with different business models and requirements. It may be meaningful for you to consider what colours of mountboard are worth keeping in stock and cutting down from off-cuts, some colours simply don't sell very often.

In addition to this I buy my backing boards in box quantities and usually stock three different types of backing board at any one time I can have anything up to about 100 backing boards in stock. I buy my glass in 25 to 30 sheets at a time and have a dedicated rack for glass storage. Experience has proved that my wastage across everything that I stock is about 40%. I haVe quite a big dumpster for my waste (600 litres) and it does not take very long to fill it up. Waste is a real pain, but it's still dead money and you have draw the line somewhere, because there will always be some more waste next week.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by StevenG »

Wastage??? What is this word?
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by pramsay13 »

@featurepiece I see your massive chunk of wastage and I raise you...
https://www.theframersforum.com/viewtop ... 11&t=14926
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by StevenG »

Oh, it's like that is it??? :lol: :lol:

I can eat a full family pack of crisps in one sitting, not a crumb left.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Jamesnkr »

Courtesy of Optimalonand making a whole series of frames from an identical moulding I managed six lengths of moulding with overall about as much waste in the OP. Was it worth the effort in putting the data into the system? Possibly not.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Not your average framer »

The main problem with wastage is that too many of us think that it's worth keeping just in case. Waste is just that, waste! Define how small is too small and anything that is too small goes straight into the dumpster. I had a good friend who worked from home and he threw out all his waste at the end of every month. At the time I thought that this was a bit too wasteful over the years I've come to realise that his idea was a lot smarter than I originally had thought.

The time that I spent over the years trying to turn waste into money never made me very much. When you start off and business is not easy, it is natural to be more careful, but once you are established and don't need to worry about the waste, it's time to make sure that you've got a big enough dumpster. Sadly it only with hindsight that you realise things like this. Now I'm a pensioner and need to tidy my shop after being really ill in February and March I'm working quite hard to do my customer orders and trying to get rid of too much waste at the same time, really brings it home to you.

I wish I had kept much less waste and put more of it in the dumpster, but you cannot turn back the clock. I don't think it matters too much how you minimise your waste, but it is very necessary that you recognise that most waste ends up in the dumpster sooner, or later. Just concentrate on getting customers orders done and recognise that most of us are wasting their time expecting to make much worthwhile money from our waste. Life is too short, why waste it trying to make chickenfeed out what really belongs in the dumpster and have some extra time off instead.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by pramsay13 »

If I'm left with around a small piece of moulding, rather than just dump it I've started making small frames in A sizes, whatever the largest is I will get from that leftover length.
If I've just cut the proper frame my morso and underpinner are both set up to take this moulding, so there's only a small extra effort to work out the size of the frame and then to cut and join.
I then give away these frames to local art groups or schools etc without mounts or glass.
It is perfect for them to showcase artwork without having to spend money and it means I keep my stock levels low.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by prospero »

I'm presently sorting my mountboard off cuts. Anything about 12x10 or less goes in a sack. I'm going to post them
on the local buy/sell page on Facebook - free for collection. If nobody wants the they are going on the compost heap. :lol:
It seems a shame to dump them. There is enough for 100s (1000s?) of perfectly good small mounts but they are such a
PITA to handle.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Glimpse »

I save up all my miscut or slightly-marked mounts - plus ones taken out of old frames - and give them to the local craft and painting groups. I also share a post on my facebook page every now and again saying they're free to anyone that wants to collect them. People that come in usually offer me something for them so I just suggest they put a couple of quid in the charity box.

I've won a couple of good customers doing this - artists who have gone on to have their work mounted and framed properly.

I also have a couple of little old ladies who call in every now and again for board scraps - one is a print maker... They pay me in all sorts - jam, eggs and recenty a lovely acanthus!

As far as moulding goes, I keep anything over a meter or so in a rack (FF) - I've lost count of the amount of times those offcuts have bailed me out when I've been a few inches short or a length had damage that I've not been able to cut around...
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by kartoffelngeist »

My post seems to have disappeared, sorry if it comes back and I'm repeating myself!

There will almost definitely be an art group or two that meet in your local community centre and would be overjoyed to get your scrap mountboard. Backing board too probably. It's good to paint on when resources and money are limited (which they often are for these groups!)

Also means you can pop on your website that you support local community art groups. Good PR!
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by prospero »

Yes..... Problem is they come back the next day wanting a free course on mount cutting. :roll:
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Glimpse »

Problem is they come back the next day wanting a free course on mount cutting.
That's when the line "Sorry, I can't invite you into the workshop for insurance reasons" comes in useful... :lol:
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by kartoffelngeist »

I've always wondered about doing some kind of course like that for people who were interested (not for free).

Can't imagine it would be worth the hassle though.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by Not your average framer »

There are framers who run courses for that sort of thing. I know that some do it through the local adult education service, I think that you have to pass some sort of test to prove that you know how to present a professional course. There is also the wife of a retired framer local to me who also teaches art and also teaches framing to local artists, she also sell amateur framing equipment as well. Her original paintings are quite sort after.

If you want teach artists how to do some basic home framing and mountcutting, I think you would get people who want to learn and afterwards, might buy so off cuts and left overs from you. It could be worth sounding out the market to see if it would be worth doing.

Years ago, I had a couple of days training with Mike Royal and he told me that he used to get speaking engagements with the Women's Institute as a way of advertising his business. He did get customers from the WI coming to him afterwards, so there is an interest from people who interested in learning about such things.
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Re: Wastage continued & RMFs

Post by prospero »

Call me Mr.Cynical if you like but I tend to think when people start doing courses it's because they have lost interest
in the subject they are teaching. If they are that good at the job they shouldn't have time to teach. :lol:

I've noticed this in particular with artists. They have great success for a few years and the start teaching. Once they start
on this route they don't do any more paintings of their own.
Ashley Jackson? Alwyn Crawshaw? Both have done telly but I haven't seen any new work since. :roll:
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