Restoring antique frame

[misterdiy]

Brilliant work. is it for your own use or are you selling it?

Great talent to do that.

[Rrainea]

Thanks very much, all. I do plan to keep it. I don't have any moody Victorian landscapes to put into it so I will just put a piece of mirror glass in it and use it as a wall mirror.

Here's a summary of the process, just in case it is helpful to someone else in the future.

I started out by dry-brushing with a moderately stiff bristle paintbrush. This cleared out most of the surface yangers. I kept the bits that fell off during the process, and re-attached them with gesso.

I had some rubber mold putty purchased for another project that I had never used, so I used that to create molds of the narrow trim around the outside and the portions of the main frame pattern that were missing. I cast plaster of paris in 2-inch sections to recreate the narrow trim and attached those pieces sequentially with gesso. I tried to use the same process for the main frame but ran into difficulties as I couldn't get the plaster casts to be level on the bottom and they were too fragile to be sanded. Instead I went to a 2-part epoxy putty, Magic-Sculpt, which is lovely stuff that I have used for restorations as well as original sculptures. It has a working time of about 20 minutes.

I built up the thickness of the frame with plaster on top of the bare wood, then used the rubber mold to create rough approximations of missing parts, piece by piece. Squashing putty into a flexible mold doesn't give a lot of precision but gives rough dimensions and shapes. I stuck the shapes down onto the plaster and used sculpting tools to refine them and join them to each other. I have a photo of the frame in process below. I used additional Magic-Sculpt to fill in any missing bits around the rest of the frame. Once everything was replaced I used dental tools and sandpaper to further refine it and remove any globs. Then I let it sit for a number of weeks while I painted a sailing ship onto a vintage wooden chest and restored a barrel-top trunk. Everything was nice and cured by the time I came back to it. I painted it with burnt umber acrylic, then added metallic bronze highlight. I used dilute washes of metallic copper, deep purple and dark red and green to recreate the faint iridescence of the original finish.

[JFeig]

Excellent job.

[Not your average framer]

I was not expecting anything as good as that. That's amazing! And would I be right in assuming that you are self taught. Well done, that's great.

[Rrainea]

Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I'm a biologist by profession and have no formal training in restoration. Just a hobbyist artist that dabbles in a wide variety of media.