7" deep box frame & screw rings

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Fri 07 Jul, 2006 2:24 pm

If I have to make a box frame out of battens I always adapt my underpinner to do the job. I have tenon saws, vices and clamps around the place but this is much easier.

Customer wanted a 7" deep box, she is painting the outside and lining the inside herself, a Cinderella's coach is going inside. She wanted a 1" wide gold moulding - not my cup of tea - looks like a cuckoo clock!

I decided to make two 3 1/2" boxes and glue them together, with MDF lining the outside for cosmetics and strength.

First I removed the plunger shown below, and its housing.

Then I replaced it with a few squares of foamboard, it worked great, 3 wedges stacked on both sides of each mitre. (Just an offcut of batten shown)

Then put the glass and the box in the frame and drew a pencil line around the box where it sat in the rebate. Along this line I inserted screw eyes (with the 'key' rings removed)

Then screwed these rings to the frame - see I told you there were uses for screw rings!!!!

The back was hinged for access, but the customer can also remove the whole box quite easily, by undoing the screws. This method is not very easy to seal but looks pretty. For something easier to seal, (remembering you can always silicone the glass and the box in) all you have to do is fire a framers point into the box and a staple over the point into the frame. Either method also works on stretched canvasses (instead of 'Z' clips) and for fitting liners into frames.

realhotglass · Post by **realhotglass** » Fri 07 Jul, 2006 10:34 pm

John, nice job on a bad design . . . not directing the design aspect towards you John (I think you might agree about that !).

Clever use of the underpinner though : )
Obviously the pins are hidden in the frame rebate ?

Design . . .
You couldn't talk her into something clear, instead of a deep opaque box ?

Just to clear up . . . was this to hang on a wall with the opening facing out ?
Looks like it, considering where you have the eyelets ready for the frame . . .

If so, <shudder>, but obviously what the customer wanted.
I just know there are much better ways to display something like that object.

Not only in a table / shelf display, but to hang on a wall (if absolutely necessary !).
My thoughts are something like a coach just don't hang sideways, they sit flat, lending themselves to a horizontal display.
I hope she wasn't going to fit the coach with the wheels on the backing ! (Looking at the top.) : /

Happy to a share design idea or two with you.

Roboframer · Post by **Roboframer** » Sat 08 Jul, 2006 7:42 am

I assume she is hanging it, the coach, I assume will be displayed normally, not being looked down on from the top.

I forgot about the pins showing from the front, I painted the exposed part of the box gold, but they still showed, so in the end I peeled the surface paper off some gold mountboard and covered the exposed bit with it.

The order was taken by my framer on my day off, customer had it all planned out.

Had we actually been framing the coach it would have been different.

That's why all I've detailed is to do with adapting underpinner and use of screw rings - hate the overall design, didn't stamp it.

markw · Post by **markw** » Sat 08 Jul, 2006 8:10 am

The fletcher multipoint tab can be used in a similar way to the screw eyes.