Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

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bodger
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Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by bodger »

OK.......I'm looking for a way to frame prints for exhibitions and to be able to offer a really good value "basic framed" option to clients.

I've played around with "conventional" framing and I'm simply not good at it - any high quality work I now put out to you guys who know what you are doing!

But exhibitions can mean 20 or 30 frames, which costs a fair whack........I find the IKEA, etc, frames just look cheap. And because of varied crops, I need to get mounts (mats) cut in any case.

How about this for an idea? Get matching standard sizes of 12mm and 3mm MDF precision cut. Then for each print use a router and framing jig to cut out the exact size of the print from the 3mm sheet. Corners will need to be cleaned up with a chisel. Glue 12mm and 3mm together and paint (alowing choice of colour to work best with the project). Mount print into recess with removable tape.

It will never be museum quality but I think would look pretty effective. One could even use a 1mm laminate as the top layer for a very subtle effect.

Tell me why it will never work, tell me I'm a genius...you choose!
Bobble
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Bobble »

Hi Bodger,
I think you have just uninvented picture framing. Stand by for comments...
Are you self isolating?
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Justintime »

I can recommend some training. Jan at Framers Equipment in Northampton runs very good affordable courses for beginners upwards.
I'm going to ignore the rest and just bite my hand... :Slap:
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

This is not a new idea! Various large commercial companies have thrown large amounts of money at very similar ideas and wished that they had not wasted their money. 12mm MDF is not very strong when a big hole has been cut out of the middle of it and gluing a piece of 3mm MDF onto the back of thhat is not going to do much to add a bit of strength. Also have you tried accurately cutting MDF with a chisel? A chisel is not a great tool for use with MDF. There are very good reasons why picture frames are made the way that they are, mainly because other methods are not generally remotely successful.

Have you spoken to a contract framer at all? Contract framers can often produce quantities of frames at a much lower cost. The rest of us spend larger amounts of money buying specialist equipment, to enable us to makes frames accurately and efficiently. Trying to do a make do job in the way that you are suggesting, is simply making a rod for your own back. I have local artist customers, who buy picture framing moulding from me and spend ages with a saw and mitre block making their own frames. Yes, you can do that, but it's not very a very easy way to make even just one frame.

Sorry, but you are not the first to try this and most won't be trying it again any time soon! Full marks for wanting to try it, but there are easier ways to go about it other than cutting it out of MDF.
Mark Lacey

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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Rainbow »

I think you've found a way of making IKEA frames look expensive! :D
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

Well, there has to be a first time for everything.
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bodger
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by bodger »

The idea is to cut the hole out of the 3mm, leaving a very shallow inset, which is a look I quite like in any case.

Agree about chisel/MDF not being ideal but it's simply for cleaning the corners.

Do a course? Perhaps, I'd rather leave making proper frames to you guys who have spent the time and have invested in the kit and spend mine snapping and selling!

Standby for pics in due course......

PS Just to amuse/annoy, might even try using s/hand chipboard, distressed, heavily stained and waxed. I've used that for wall panels and it looks amazing. Really!
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Justintime »

Where is the Troll emoji?
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bodger
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by bodger »

Err, no thank you very much. I am NOT trolling. I am showing every respect for your trade and your skills, but merely asking about a novel technique, the limitations of which I quite appreciate.

I'm sensing a bit of "not-invented-here" going on. Depressing.
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

Cutting the cut out in the 3mm MDF sounds stronger and a bit easier.
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by GeoSpectrum »

If you can do what you are suggesting surely you can make a basic frame? Use plain wood mouldings cross pinned and wood filler to hide the gaps and apply a paint finish. Or order chop kits from a supplier. Clamp up with handy wrap. You can order bespoke size mounts from any number of places.

I think what you suggest MIGHT work for acrylic or oils on artists canvas board but would also need a rim of some sort to make the mdf a bit more ridgid and for aesthetic purposes.

An alternative MIGHT be to mount (glue) the artwork on mdf, glaze it with acrylic medium to protect it, although if not done properly this would look naff and destroy the art work......
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm not sure how gluing two pieces of MDF is going to look better that the IKEA frames which the original poster says "just look cheap". Also getting a decent looking finish of the MDF might not be that easy either. After adding up the cost of getting all this MDF accurately cut to size and getting enough coats of paint on to the MDF produce a presentable paint finish, the cost is adding up.

Sorry, this is not a cheap, or a realistic way of making the frames look better that less cheap looking than frames from IKEA. Also, the lock down might be over and long gone, by the time you have painted the MDF with enough coats of paint and sanded down in between coats, to counteract the tendancy of MDF to produce rough looking paint finishes. Does anyone want to tell us how this approach is going to either save money, or will look less cheap than IKEA frames?

It might be worth trying to make and paint one frame first, before wasting money on trying to make and paint all of them.
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Steve N »

I'm lost for words :lipssealed:
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Richard Photofusion »

Ah, but take the mdf carcas, and vacuum form styrene with an inbetwixt film of of araldite, no, PVA, then wrap the surface with monomeric, or cast vinyl of you choice.

Polychromatic colour change picture frames.

OK, about this wheel thing, what colour do you think it should be?
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Richard Photofusion »

Whilst talking to myself, at the London Art Fair last year, I was rather taken with some seamless quite wide, beautifully finished black frames. Thoroughly complimented the grand scale photographs within them.

The artist had both taste, and a fitting budget.

My flippant response to the budget framing does make me wonder whether it would be possible to skin, whether vacuum form or otherwise a less expensive contruction and make a seemingly seemless, if temporal presentation. To top it all, some of the cast vinly wrapping materials have 7-10 year exterior warranties - that in English picture hanging years is centuries (and they're designed to wrap around objest costing five, six and more figures, so are not hideously corrosive).

To take less than premium materials and construction and create make a seemingly unflawed and unwarranted result.

Hmm.
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Keith Hewitt »

Can you make one :?: or maybe you already have

And post a picture on here

Lets see how it looks
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bodger
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by bodger »

Richard - your London Art Fair point - thanks for the encouragement, that's exactly what I'm feeling my way towards. May not pan out, but I'll have a play and post the results.

As far as the polychromatic colour change feature goes, perhaps one could paint it with chameleon-attracting paint? :)
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

Vacuum forming is not all that difficult to do, You can even make your own vacuum forming set up, it's not that hard to do. You need to make a wooden pattern around which the sheet of plastic will form. There needs to be a vacuum containment vessel under neath the pattern, which will equalise the air flow to all the small holes that will be drilled into the pattern, the holes need not be any bigger than 3mm diameter. There must be no sharp corners on the pattern, vacuum forming does not like sharp corners.

Where I was an apprentice, people in the machine shop made up various vacuum formed items for styling models form radio and TV sets, they were not necessarily exactly what the final product would look like, but they looked pretty good. I can't remember what was used as a vacuum pump, but I'm guessing that a reasonably powerful vacuum cleaner would do the job quite well. There is a limitation with vacuum forming that there is quite a bit off wastage around the edges, any depth to the shape around the edges have to come from somewhere and this needs to come from the material around the edges. The material around the edges is going to be at least twice the height that you are trying to vacuum form and then, the area of material that is needed for the material so be clamped.

As the heat from above softened the plastic the pattern was raised up into the now flopping plastic and at the right point the vacuum was switched on. The heating elements were the old fasioned electric fire 1 kilo watt bare elements and the distance between the heating elements and the piece of plastic being vacuum formed was quite important. I assume that this distance involved some trial and error to get it right. The heating time depended upon the type and thickness of the plastic and there were windows to allow visibility to observe the whole process. This was in the late 1960's when I was an apprentice with Rank Bush Murphy, who manufactured Bush and Murphy radio and television recievers in the very early days when colour television was being developed by not yet available for sale to the public.

This was the hay day for British manufacturing, which was not to last as the bosses were keen to sell the company to the Japanese, for a knock down price, initially the company became Rank Radio International, then Rank Toshiba and uventually just Toshiba. The companies production plant just outside plymouth now assembles air conditioning equipment for Toshiba and the television manufacturing years are a fading memory in the memories of those of us who were young enough at the time to still be around to remember. I got made redundant and moved on into the newly developing high tech part of industry which was only just starting to appear at the time. Many of the well recognised company names of todays high tech leaders were small start up operations in those days. We thought we were so clever in those days, but much of what we started is long gone now.
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by prospero »

Ever heard of clipframes? :wink:
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Re: Idea for novel appraoch...feedback please!

Post by Not your average framer »

Don't forget that they must not look as cheap as IkEA.

:head: :head: :head: :Slap:
Mark Lacey

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