Skinny frames

[girlfromkent]

Hello All

I'm sure you've all heard it "I just want a thin black frame..."


People often want skinny frames. I've got a nice thin aluminum I offer, and occasionally I'll fit sub frames, but my selection of thin (say 15mm ish) mouldings is sparse.

Often, thin mouldings will look ok in the book but turn out to be too flimsy, nasty to cut, or just pants.

Recommendations please! What are your go to skinnies?

Thanks
Megan

[prospero]

I get Mr/Mrs Thin Black Frame quite regularly. What they really want is a cheap frame. But the two things
don't always equate. Often trying to shoe-horn something into a diddley frame makes more work than using one
which is more fit for purpose. And the general finish and structural integrity can be iffy. As well as looking not-good.
The difference in price between a crap frame and a decent one is generally minimal.

There is also the close relation Mr/Mrs. Simple Pine Frame.

[JonathanB]

Megan -
At £5.58 a metre Prospero's Mr and Mrs Thin Black Frame won't like this, but if I want something thin and black that looks really classy, I always go for C2784 from Wessex. It's 15mm across and has a useful 20mm rebate and a satin matt finish. Can't always sell it at the price but I highly recommend you get a sample and have a look. Always looks great with a black and white photo or print and some AR glass.

[Not your average framer]

That's funny I see a bit of them down here as well, it could be that they like to get around quite a bit.

Seriously though making a lot of thin black frames look interesting on smaller artworks with no mount is often a waste of time. For myself, I like to use really chunky mounts to make narrow black frames look the business. As for simple pine frames, I think that a lot of customers, who ask for simple pine frames don't seem to like simple pine frames when you show them to them.

Then there's the punters looking for poster frames for two, or three quid. Fat chance of that! I seem to get quite a few punters who are looking for cheap ready made frames for something they want to sell on ebay. The are not expecting to sell the finished item for very much, so the frame needs to be rediculously cheap. When I offer them a large poster frame for £25, they rapidly lose interest.

You don't see many frames in the local charity shops anymore, so I guess some of these people think that they will try their luck elsewhere. I don't know how many have noticed this, but charity shops are not cheap places to buy things anymore. I have a friend who is not in the framing business and has a one pound box in his shop and people spend ages digging around is this box and still expect on discount on an items for only one pound. How crazy is that?

[girlfromkent]

Megan -
At £5.58 a metre Prospero's Mr and Mrs Thin Black Frame won't like this, but if I want something thin and black that looks really classy, I always go for C2784 from Wessex. It's 15mm across and has a useful 20mm rebate and a satin matt finish. Can't always sell it at the price but I highly recommend you get a sample and have a look. Always looks great with a black and white photo or print and some AR glass.

Cool, thanks Jonathan. I'll get a couple of sticks in.

[Justintime]

My go-to black skinnies are Lions L2651 and L2873 and Rose and Hollis A195 and A3850 with a quick coat of black acrylic gesso!

[Not your average framer]

I've got some Simons OAK/0007 it's nice and narrow and fairly solid and durable. Sometimes, I get to make frames with this. It's nice painted black. It's often best with a small sub frame at the rear - oak is quite strong, but you still need enough area of contact and the corner joints to get a strong frame. It looks nice, but it is often gappy at the corners and will require filling. It's much easier to fix the D rings on the small sub frame.

[prospero]

Exempli Gratia.......


Years ago I had a little gold frame - about ½" - which looked nice and cost about 30p ft. The usual Italian stuff.
At the same time I had a little German one roughly the same size which looked VERY nice and cost about £2.50 ft.
On the face of it the VERY nice frame was around 8x dearer. But on a small frame costing £30 or so with the Italian
moulding would have cost maybe an extra tenner with the German.

I once priced a job (little engraving or somesuch) and showed the 'dear' moulding first. It looked the dog's wotsits.
The customer thought so too. Then I wheeled out the cheap one. The thing is, having seen how well the German one
looked she wasn't very impressed with the Italian. And saving didn't seem so impressive either.

So the moral is: Show them the ideal first and once they've got the design imprinted they will always hark back to it.