Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

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Foresty_Forest
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Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Foresty_Forest »

The price of moulding has gone up. I currently use Rose & Hollis. I'm very happy with their product and service, but I really should scout around for cheaper prices - if there are any! Who do you use and recommend?
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Not your average framer »

I use mostly Simons and Rose and Hollis. However, getting the best value has a lot to do with knowing what to buy! I buy a lot of bare wood mouldings and some mouldings are more labour efficient to prepare than others. Cheap often means not very good, so beware! I buy quite a lot of pine and some particular pine mouldings have almost no knots, while some others have knots every few inches. The best quality end of the market and the cheap end of the market tend to be at different ends of the market, there's good stuff and not such good stuff and both ends, so be careful!
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Abacus »

I get 90% of my mouldings and board products from Centrado. I like the van delivery rather than the pot luck of couriers.

I also use Larson juhl, Lion and Mainline.
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by YPF »

There are plenty of suppliers out there (Nielsen Design, Larsen Juhl, Centrado, Lion, Flagship Framing, Mainline, Rose and Hollis, Wessex, Simons). I know that Centrado and Wessex use their own vans and there is a distinct advantage to that over the general carriers.

In no particular order, we use Nielsen, Centrado, Lion and LJ
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Justintime »

You mean barewoods? I'm pretty sure that Lions, Wessex and LJ are more expensive for the same mouldings as Rose and Hollis. Worth checking Simons vs RnH.
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Not your average framer »

Hi justin,

I think that is likely to be true, but some of the bare wood mouldings from these more expensive suppliers is often really nice quality stuff. However after you have painted a piece of moulding, there's not a lot of chance of that showing. I'm not much impreesed with the quality of obeche used to produce some of the budget priced factory fininished moulding supplied by some suppliers. I persoally don't like really low density obeche where you can hardly feel the pressure needed to insert the wedges at the frame corners and have my doubts as to how strong these frames will be.

The thing that I like most about Rose and Hollis is the large range of moulding profiles. Quite a lot of the profiles from suppliers with a limited range of moulding profiles are not very helpful when trying to produce frames to create frames which really WOW the customers. I like to create stacked moulding frames, which look really "designer", but it's not so easy to do. The different mouldings need to fit together to make something that looks stunning, but every now and then certain key moulding get discontinued and the missing moulding which looks just right joining other moulding together is gone forever.

More recently I have been adapting mouldings to make them a nice look and fit with other stacked mouldings, with the aid of my band saw. This is a lot easier that using a router as it saves a lot of setting up time. An electric planner fitted to a base board makes a good planner thicknesser as well. This may sound surprising, but the time it takes to do things like this all to easily determines whether someting is worth doing at all. I also reshape certain barewood mouldings which look to dated for modern customers tastes.

Replacing curved humps with raised flats can make older style profiles really popular with some customers looking for something a bit more modern. custmers don't generally make the connection between the original profile and the modified profile. A more modern looking profile usually gets a more modern looking paint finish as well, so It not easy to spot the similarities. Add a different slip and the transformation is complete!
Mark Lacey

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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Justintime »

I'm comparing prices like for like Mark...
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Not your average framer »

Yes, I think so too! Also on bare wood moulings, intricately profiled moulding seem to be using better quality obeche to avoid tare out when machining. I don't have any proof for this, but shaped moulding seen to be made of wood which is denser and less likely to arrive with dents. Some of the older looking styles of bare woods appear to often be a better deal in terms of prices as well! I have recently noticed that it is getting more difficult to find good looking deeper mouldings, from just about anywhere.

Most of the deeper bare wood mouldings are all rectangular profiles now, or prfiles that lack the appropriate style to look good. The combinations of depth vs wide often leave a lot to be desired. Cutting down deeper moulding to make them less deep, wastes a lot of time and I don't really want to do this. I've got my eye on really useful moulding to fit inside a deeer moulding to make something suitable for framing medals ang such like, but I can't find a suitable outer moulding of the right depth, look and cost to make this work.

Cost can be a big limiting factor when stacking mouldings, because the extra costs per moulding on a group of moulding adds up too easily when it's a group of mouldings. Sure thay look stunning, but there's extra work making stacked moulding frames. There's just no point in making stacked moulding frames, if you have to agree to discounted prices to sell them. Everybody loves how they look, but some people think that it's the done thing to expect a discount. These are not just stacked moulding frames, but stunning hand finishing as well. I've just say no to discounts at all now. My prices are more than fair so it's take it, or leave it. End of discussion!
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by prospero »

Moulding suppliers are mostly importers. Very few mouldings are actually made by the suppliers. Often they buy from
the same manufacturers. So in terms of moulding quality, no one supplier is better than another. This is why they seldom
quibble about crediting you for the occasional bad batch. They get crap stuff now and then. They don't check each stick
before sending it out. To do so would increase the price dramatically. Better to send it out as they received it and make good
any complaints. :D

As far as customer service goes, they are all pretty good. They can't afford not to be. :P

I would however extol the virtues of Rose and Hollis who are always willing to go the extra mile. :clap:
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Not your average framer »

I'm referring specifically to bare wood moulding and hand fnishing right now, when I say that there is not a lot of point in buying moulding that lack the look. Sure they might be a bit cheaper, but there needs to be a bit of the WOW factor! Otherwise where is the incentive for customers to want to buy it. Nice painted finishes are also much easier on nice wood as well! I'm not very keen on doing lots of priming and endless sanding the primer down to a smooth surface, so I like my moulding to be a cleanly machined as possible. A large part of successfully producing stacked moulding frames is including enough nicely shaped moulding to create the desired effect, but also to include enough lower priced mouldings to help spread the costs a bit.

You need to be quite imaginitive to figure out how best to do this. There is a worthwhile market for basic hand finished flat moulding, for customers who like a nicely finished frame, but are not in to frames with a bit of shape. Most of these for me are flat pine moulding from Simons, but a few obeche mouldings get included as well. Price tends to be a primary consideration! Rose and Hollis tend to be where I go for moulding wit a bit more shape and visual interest. The great thing about stacking mouldings is that you can mix it up a bit to control your costs. Not every moulding fit together with every other moulding, but a little while ago I got a band saw and this enables me to adjust mouldind to fit together in a visually better way.
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Re: Which Moulding Supplier Do You Use and Recommend?

Post by Not your average framer »

I would definitely say that my stock of moulding is probably at least 90% bare wood mouldings and that I think a lot about sizes and proportions. Not all available mouldings are necessarily helpful in this regard. A moulding may be available at a good price, but how many of us necessarily know what uses that we decide to stock that moulding for? I don't have much storage space, so I need to be a bit restrictive in what I stock and therefore I think long and hard about how much sense it makes to buy specific mouldings. Sometimes cheaper less interesting mouldings get transformed, with a bit of creative cutting on the band saw. This can involve a bit of thinking about how to hide cut edges, so that additional machining can be avoided. Also I often like to split some mouldings in to a number of sips and profile which can be used separately, either in part of a stacked moulding frame, or as a separate moulding. It's a different sort of mindset! Also it has a lot to do with how I make my money go a bit further.

Prospero mentioned some time ago that in framing, nothing succeeds like excess! This is a principe which I rely up on quite a bit! Bigger profiles tend to cost much more to create, but if part of a larger profile can include cheaper, more basic mouldings without compromising the appearance, money can be saved and the overall profile can be priced at an acceptable price to the customer, while also ensuring adequate profitability for the framer. Much more basic profiles are helpful to satisfy the requirements of less ambitious customers, but often some minor refinemnts can help to win the order, when they are concidering looking at other framers to get the best deal. I'm quite into slips and liners, but it is ofter cheaper to make my slips and liners from slicing up mouldings, or even slicing up my waste. A little bit of added interest from a affordable, but not "run of the mill" slip, or liner can work really well with a more basic frame. At times like this indecisive customers can become much more interested in what I am able to offer!

Making slips by slicing up the right mouldings, is not necessarily all that expensive and can make good financial sense. It is not always necessary to spend much time hand fnishing slips, very often a single coat of Polyvine's coloured wax finish acrylic varnsh is enough to look really great. I often add a little touch of white to some colours just to tone them down slightly and add a little hint of opacity to give a sightly subtile look. Even when I do this, the idea is that this will still be a single application of finish to save time and keep it simple!
Mark Lacey

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