Massive Mouldings

[prospero]

I was asked to replicate an olde frame the other week. Huge moulding - 5" wide and 4" deep.

Took a bit of head-scratching but I knocked up a sample.

giantframe001.jpg (243.67 KiB) Viewed 18139 times

giantframe002.jpg (186.23 KiB) Viewed 18139 times

The scooped back is formed using R&H A168 obeche with the back sliced off and turned on it's back. R&H A165 (trimmed down) forms the internal scoop. The bit that I cut off the back nice makes the shallow scooped section on the inside. This is all perched on 19mm pse pine and two bits of a hockeystick profile completes the job.

I was quite pleased with how it turned out.

[Ricky]

Genius

[Framerpicture]

Very impressive and like the finish too - Is it all just glued together?

[mikeysaling]

dya wanna be in my gang!! brill

[Not your average framer]

Hi Peter,

You're a man after my own heart. I specialise in massive profiles, though not quite like that. If I had somewhere that I could use a table saw I would buy one tomorrow.

I wonder how many members of the forum realise just how much time goes into producing impressive profiles like this.

As usual a very nice job and something to inspire others.

[prospero]

The sample is a bit of a lash-up. There again, a lot of old gilt frames are very rough construction underneath the gesso. I'd do it a bit neater on a real frame. It's mostly no-more-nails and staples.

I was trying to get that nice tarnished antique look to the gold by painting it with dark brown acrylic paint and wiping off. Looks quite good actually. May have overcooked it in places......

[prospero]

I have table saw, but it is only a cheepo. The blade is OKish, but the guide bar is a bit hit and miss. A bandsaw would be much better for this job. (On the wishlist). Plus I can only use it when it's not raining as I have not got the lecky plumbed into the shed yet and need to run an extension cable across the yard. (Work still in progress. )

[Not your average framer]

I can't use a saw in the back yard, because there's a company working in the back yard producing prepared vegetables for the restuarant trade. I don't think that they would appreciate sawdust in the food!

I would guess that even with a dust extraction system, the dust would be too much for doing it in my workshop.

[Not your average framer]

Hi Peter,

I've just been looking at those two R&H mouldings in the catalogue. A very interesting bit of accurate cutting. Very nice work! I'm very impressed with the way you have done this!

I think I need to find a way of fitting in a table saw, as I'm missing out on some really useful potential by not having one.

[prospero]

I wouldn't call my cutting accurate exactly. I'm more from the 'fits where it touches' school of joinery. For this sort of work, a bandsaw is the better weapon. Finer blade and safer to operate. Cutting the inner moulding was tricky as I had to do it in two cuts from opposite sides. There is quite a bit of filler used.
I didn't twig that the bit cut off the outer moulding would form the small scoop on the inside until I cut it off.

I saw a very neat little machine somewhere that is a combo planer-thicknesser/saw/router table. If I had one of those, I could really do some damage.

[Rabbie Side Burns]

Very impressive! I bet you will be charging a pretty penny for all that work! Congrats on your ingenuity.

[Junglewalker]

Hi,
I am new to this forum but have been a framer for 20 years. There are a lot of fine contributors but the guy who has caught my eye is Prospero....Congratulations on all your posts.Prospero,I noticed that you apply 7 coats of gesso prior to gilding...wow....aren't you afraid of losing the definition of the moulding?..or is your gesso as thin as water? Are you particular about the gilders whiting you use,and the size.( i have found that Stephenson's whiting is fine..and Cornellison's whiting, not so fine) what is your recipe for gilding liquor? ( I use a bead of gelatine,some isopropyl alcohol and some distiller water)
Best wishes

[prospero]

Thank You for the kind words junglewalker.

I'm not the 7 coats of gesso guy though. The only mouldings I use with gesso on are ready-gessoed ones or ones that I have stripped the gold off.

All my gilding is done using bronze powders. (Inc the biggie in this topic.)

[Steve Goodall]

VERY IMPRESSIVE!!!

[cleaver]

Just stumbled upon this thread....pure genius, Mr.P.

[Not your average framer]

And well worth getting into as well. It opens up all sort of possibilities that you can do any other way and besides all that, it is particularly satisfying to do.

There's a bit of technique fitting all the different bits and pieces together, but it's not particularly hard to get the hang of it. I'm not into clamping things up for hours while the glue sets, or having to need a large stock of clamp to keep everything clamped at regular distances along the finished lengths of stacked moulding sections that are being glued together.

I just cannot be bothered with all the fuss, so I clamp it up at both ends and work my way along with a couple of other clamps and use my compressed air powered headless pinner, nail guns, or staple guns. Once the the sections are pinned together, the pins / staples replace the clamping action of the clamps and I can move of to clamp and join the next position. It saves a lot of effort and time as well.

As far as possible I try to pin the sections together, section by section, pinning them together from inside the frame. As multiple sections are joined together, I try to hide earlier pinning sites under the next piece of moulding to be added, with the intention that the last pins will be fired in from inside the rebate, so they cannot be seen.

[cleaver]

What happens about mitres on beasts such as these.....a circular saw job? And how did you pin it, Mr P??!!

This shows such imagination, craft and technique - I'm proper blown away!

Slightly off topic: Mark (and anyone else), I know you do a lot of bare woods finishing....could you please point me in the right direction on getting started (books, Youtube, whatever)? How did you start with doing it, fella? I realise it's another craft within a craft.

[prospero]

I have a series of photos that I have been meaning to upload of a big frame I did just before Christmas. It should give some
insight into the process. You have to think outside the box on the huge frames.
This one was for a 7'x5' canvas with a frame about 6" wide. The finished frame only just fitted though the door.

[Not your average framer]

I was hooked on hand finishing after seeing a demonstration at the NEC spring fair by Pete Bingham and later when I started my framing business, I bought a lot of mouldings from someone who was selling up. Amongst the huge quantity of these mouldings was some very nice American catalogue Larson Jhul mouldings some of them very spectacular and quite large. The sold like hot cakes and after a while they were all gone, but my customer base were people looking for more of the same.

I started doing stacked and hand finished mouldings to replace the earlier mouldings and also was funded by the employment service for one weeks training with Pete Bingham, after that I never looked back. The economy in rural Devon has changed a bit since those days and I have needed to address the market differently since then, the choice of bare wood mouldings that stack together like they were made for each other has been changing and customer tastes have changed as well, but I'm still doing stacked, or hand finished frames as an important part of my business.

Recently, I have been able to adjust some bare wood mouldings to fit bits and pieces together after cutting the bits I want from different mouldings and joining the together. A lot of this I do with the aid of a decent table saw. I takes a while to get both fast and good at this, but practice makes perfect.

[cleaver]

So are there any books etc you'd recommend, Mark....or did Pete and the university of life(!) cover all your learning?

It all sounds pretty daunting: waxes, stains, gilding etc etc etc. But what a string to have your bow in giving yourself so much flexibility and utility from stock.

MR P, I must seek out that thread you mention.