custom made moulding

[muffinski]

A customer wanted a oak profile that is 6cm in height, 15mm width and a rebate of 5mm, the overall size of the frame is 4ft x 3 ft. He had the moulding made by a wood merchant and asked me to put it toghether, (I could not find what he wanted from the usual sources). so I only have 10mm width to fire the pins in it. Of course it did not go well, I tried them stacked in two rows and one row stacked, they either came out the outside of the frame or cause the corner of the join to push apart. How would you tackle this moulding size or is it an unrealistic moulding dimension to pin together. I have used hard wood pins and phenumatic under pinner, not sure what I can do differently.

[Jamesnkr]

Not sure you can stack hardwood wedges. Can't on my Minigraf anyway.

Back to the old fashioned method. Stick one wedge in and glue and clamp it. Then use nails in the old fashioned way. Drill a small hole for them first and fill the hole.

[Graysalchemy]

No you cant stack hardwood wedges as they are sharpened. Also if you use normal wedges in oak they can split anyway. Your best bet is glue and clamp then drill pin and fill or put in some single wedges.

I would be tempted to make a pine sub frame as well to give it strength as well.

[prospero]

Do what James said. The more pressure you can exert with a strap clamp the better.

That will at least get the frame joined. There will be a limit to how much strain the joint will take, given the small gluing area.
If glass is going in it then you will need extra strengthening. A subframe, as AG suggests, is the best method IMHO.

[David McCormack]

That's a skinny deep moulding

Plenty of glue and clamp overnight is the way as already mentioned. An alternative to brads/pins is to drill and glue in some wooden dowels in a contrasting wood to the oak such as sapele or walnut, I do this on all my oak frames now, more work but looks good and all you need is a good quality sharp drill bit, flush cutting back saw and sandpaper. looks nice with a simple oil finish

Sapele-Dowels.jpg (188.74 KiB) Viewed 10770 times

[muffinski]

thats really helpful guys thanks. I have been able to stack the wedges successfully on wider frames upto 3 in a stack, but I guess they are not designed to if they have sharpened edges? I tend to use the MW/HW wedges not the HDF wedges are these the ones you mean? I will be using some sort of a sub frame/bracket system, that is if he comes back to me again given I have just recked his bespoke moulding.

[muffinski]

That's a skinny deep moulding

I know tell me about it, man that corner looks sweet with the dowels , what lenght would you reccomend? and presume you add the dowels after they have been glued? so are there no wedges at all in that frame at all?

[David McCormack]

I use a foot operated underpinner and got fed up of struggling with 10mm wedges not going in far enough or opening the joint in ash and oak so looked for an alternative way. Contrasting wooden dowels was mentioned on here so I gave it a go and was hooked.

I glue and pin with a single 4mm wedge (makes it easier to get the frame in the band clamp) and then clamp the frame tight overnight. When fully dry I clamp the frame to my workbench and drill 6mm holes about 30mm deep. Fill the holes with glue and push the dowels in. This can cause a lot of hydraulic pressure as the glue has nowhere to go as the dowels don't have grooves in them. When dry cut the dowels with a flush back saw and sand to finish. Once you wax or oil the frame the dowels darken up nicely. This is where I get my dowels.

I put the dowels in on the sides not top and bottom so they can be seen

[Jamesnkr]

as the glue has nowhere to go as the dowels don't have grooves in them.

Why not drill a small hole perpendicular to the hole for the dowel from the rebate to the dowel hole?

[David McCormack]

That's a clever idea thanks, but the glue does find its way out of the main drill hole eventually and this way I know the dowel has a good coating of glue. Just takes a surprising amount of pressure to get the dowel in all the way!

(Should have said 5mm wedges not 4mm.)

[muffinski]

Thanks for the link David, defo gonna give that a go, not sure I can on this frame as the dowels ar 6mm and the frame width is 10mm so might be cutting it fine with 2mm in each side...

[David McCormack]

It is possible but only just I did on this frame which I made for myself and is only 10mm across its back (R&H SW9397). It's only a small frame though.

DSC_0632.jpg (234.69 KiB) Viewed 10721 times

[muffinski]

ohhh tight, looks good though!

[Roboframer]

I think a countersunk screw looks as good if not better, especially if slotted screws are used and the slots line up. They could also be filled and look just like those dowels too, but smaller, which is nicer IMHO.

Also screws negate the need for a band clamp, they'll pull the glued mitre together.

[IFGL]

Very nicely done David, although I do not like the look of the contrasting wooden dowel.

[David]

Very neat David like it, think I'll have to give it a go.

[Jamesnkr]

I love the contrasting wooden dowel. It looks stylish. It makes it look like a proper carpenter's job, not just four bits of plastic moulding stuffed together that anybody could do. Best of all, it looks expensive. Very expensive. Reminds me (a bit) of this sort of stuff:

http://www.davidlinley.com/store/home-a ... es#/page/1

[Trinity]

Evo-stik mitre adhesive is worth a try.
Yes you can break the joint if you wish to prove a point, but for most purposes it'll do the trick

[prospero]

Someone posted this clip on the Grumble...



Which may or may not be of interest.

[Jamesnkr]

Now there's an idea.

I painted a big notice on my biscuit jointer box that says something like "This thing kicks like a mule when started, do not have it anywhere near the work until it is running." Maybe it's because I have a cheap-as-possible one; else chappy has super-human strength.

Secondly, I didn't get what he was saying at the beginning about sharpening the jointer's blade. That make sense to anybody?