The Framers Forum

I'm hoping to find source of compo corner decorations to try out. The other option would be to take a cast from a frame I already have. I'm not relay sure where to start. Can someone provide a couple of pointers? Thanks

The only source of gesso corner ornaments I ever found was a company in the US. Lion do some 'Pasta' ornaments. I have tried them and all in all they are but are a lot of work. They often get broken and are quite pricey to start with. Not a huge selection either. The erstwhile Renaissance Mouldings used to do some little leaves, but they were about a quid each and were not the best quality. You had to buy about ten to get four good ones.

Taking castings of the traditional 'swept' corners is OK if you are replacing one on the same frame. The way these are made is to cast them in a wooden mould. At this stage they are flat. To use, they are steamed to soften the gesso and then moulded onto the shape of the particular frame. So the resultant cast would only really fit a frame the same contour.
Trying to reverse-engineer a mould from an existing frame and flattening would not be easy. Much easier to get a firm that specialise in such things (Frinton Gallery?) to make a complete plain gessoed frame for you

People who have a set of moulds - usually very old ones carved from boxwood tend to guard them jealously. Can't say I blame them.

This is a frame I did a while back using Lion corners. It doesn't look too bad, but it was a lot of work. And a lot of filler. The moulding already had the running pattern on, but I had to build a jig to rout out a flat area. The corners come in two parts- left and right. Sticking them on was easy enough, but blending them in was a faff.



All things considered it was nice to do as an exercise but I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

There are 3 compo supply companies that I know of in the USA. The largest is Decorators Supply in Chicago. They have several very large catalogues (not free). Their treasure is the original 1800's hand carved wood molds. They have an on line catalogue as well.

http://www.decoratorssupply.com/store/main.aspx

I guess the level of detail required is too great for CNC cutting?

What you need Alan, is a 3D printer.


Print the whole frame.

Excellent! Another toy to add to the list.

Alan

You could also buy a CNC router table to carve the ornaments into the wood of a complete frame.............. or even make round and oval frames.

One day, too many other projects on the go!

I can mould my own compo decorations when I have the time, but I'm not getting as much call for onate frames these days.

When I first started out I bought a lot of the stock and equipment from a couple of framers which were closing down. This included some biscuit tins containing compo decorations removed from old frames and some white metal moulds originally made by the plastic wood company.

The moulds were originally intended for the furniture industy and probably date from the 1950's or even earlier. The salvaged compo decorations are now all used up, but I did take some casts from the more useful ones before I used the last of them and from the odd frame acquired along the way.

Gold leaf supplies can supply ready made compo which can be warmed up using a kitchen steamer and pressed into moulds quite easily, if you have a suitable press. If you can get some promising old decorations to take casts from, it is not that difficult to do the rest.

BTW, if the old decorations have been reshaped to fit an old frame, you will have to try and flatten them before you can take a cast from them. It's worth bearing in mind that the moulds you can make this way will wear out with use, so keep the original old decorations for future use.

Richard Christie is the man to talk to. He knows what he's doing and does it for a living.
http://richard-framemaker.blogspot.co.uk/

GeoSpectrum wrote:One day, too many other projects on the go!

Precisely.