The Framers Forum

I am sure this is a perennial topic but what do you do with left overs?

I have made remainder frames which sell but not at the rate I accumulate waste and I also dont have the time to spend making them when paying jobs are lined upo.

Thing is - I cant bear to throw away good moulding.

there probably is no answer to this issue - just thought I would ask to salve my conscience should I end up binning most of the off cuts...

Guide your customers towards the leftovers. Offer them a choice of three leftover mouldings and they're bound to pick one of them... Every morning choose three mouldings where you have leftovers and make sure they're the first you offer to customers.

I sometimes do a sale on selected mouldings and put a little sticker on them. Customers get a bargain and I get rid of moulding.

Up to you how much if anything you want to take off. Could keep it vague, make it sound like a good deal and not actually change the price...

TBH though, taking 20% or so off the moulding doesn't really make a huge impact. Especially if it's there and already paid for.

Common Framer said, "Thing is - cant bear to throw away good moulding" ditto from me - really goes against the grain.

Couple of thoughts, we had a successful/profitable framing shop/gallery for around thirty years and I appreciate this has been debated before but, we always worked/made frames in "batches" and found waste was kept to a minimum that way. Not only moulding but also glass, mount card and backing.

At the end of each day and just before clearing up the workshop, left over moulding was knocked up into rims for RMF or the "framed second" box. I did have the advantage of living above the shop.

Also, are you adding enough wastage factor in your pricing, 30% seems the norm these days. That way any money realised from left overs helps the bottom lone.

FWIW I love James's suggestion - never thought of that

Peter

It all goes in the woodburner in winter. I stockpile until then and all offcuts that are usable get left till I have nearly run out of stuff to burn then that gets chopped up.

You cant believe the rate at which moulding piles up

I have found that the truth is no matter how hard you try to make use of your left over mouldings, there are not enough hours in the day to use any more than a fraction of your left over waste. Not only that, but you have to be really discerning to pick out the right mouldings that will sell as ready made frames.

Don't laugh, but the woodburner suggestion is probably the most sensible way to use up the majority of your left over waste. Pick out the nicest bare woods, such as Ash and Oak and make these into RMF's as these are so easy to sell, plus anything which just looks really classy and burn or chuck the rest.

I don't have a woodburner, so I regularly take quite a lot of off-cuts to the garage across the road and the owner of the garage takes them home to burn in his woodburner. I follow a mixed pricing system for my RMF's, so that there is something for everyone. You price them to sell, if you want them to move, otherwise turning much of your waste into RMF's is a pointless waste of time.

Be realistic, I have a huge dumpster at the back of my shop and it's always full when they come to empty it. Your labour is what makes the money, don't waste to much time for no useful purpose. Framing orders is where the real money is and unfortunately most RMF's are now considered as cheap commodity items.

Most of the RMF market is a battle to be cheaper than the competition. Only the classy stuff gets you any worthwhile money!

Just a note of caution about burning moulding off cuts on wood burning stoves,

I have a 9kw "Woodwarm" wood burner. This company developed the modern air wash system, copied by "Clearview" who make some top of the range wood burners. Both these companies (possible others) along with the HETAS qualified installer, strongly advise not to burn painted wood because of the risk of hazardous fumes.

Using the Morso droppings to fire up my wood burner works well and gives a good bed of ash for larger logs but adding larger off cuts of painted wood is not very sensible in my HO.

If you unfortunately don't have the time to make, or the market for, framed off cuts along with low foot fall past your premises then you are definitely up against it.

On a more optimistic note, perhaps this thread is not finished and you/we make get a few more positive suggestions. Anyone?

Peter

This obviously won't be useful for every moulding and it's maybe a bit labour intensive (unusual situation here, labour isn't an issue), but little boxes are a nice thing to pop together sometimes.

You could make tiny ones for jewellery etc, put cross stitches in the lid, leave it glazed for someone to put their own photo in (I made a heap at 6"x4" just for that) etc.

Mmm, I like the box. Nice!

I started making a table light with little bits.

Like I really need a table light.

Imagine a turned column. Like that but four-sided. You can use very short bits, mitre them and stack them up.
Doesn't matter which way up they are.

Anyroadup, it's about six inches high now. That as far as I got.
When I get to the top I will put a light fitting on, get a shade and it will look very nice.

You don't often see Chianti bottles these days.

What are these left overs of which you speak?

We carry a range of around 75 mouldings and always frame from stock. When a profile runs low we order in the same again and if, as sometimes happens, there is a noticeable mismatch with the replacement there may be a few feet of the old stuff "left over" but the quantities involved are so small as to be insignificant.

We all would like to find a way of converting all those little bits of waste moulding into something that sells like hot cakes and I've tried like everyone else. Unfortunately I've never been able to find a sure fire way of making enough money out of it to cover the labour costs involved.

Years ago, things were different, but now even the pound shops are selling ready made frames. These cheap RMF's are made in China and who knows where else, If you add up the cost of all those left over bits that none of us know any good ways of making money from, it doesn't add up to anything worth bothering about. Make some RMF's with the nice left overs, if you can, bin the rest and go home happy. Works for me!

I know that you said that "I can't bear to throw any good moulding". We all start off like this, but give it a few more years............

I've just come across this book:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Decorative-Acc ... an+kistler

I haven't seen the book but I get the impression that the projects aren't commercial though - perhaps more for people who just enjoy woodworking as a hobby?

Looking at some of the examples illustrated of the picture of the cover of this book, this requires accuracy of cutting way beyond the capabilities of most hobby woodworkers and those who have the ability and the necessary equoipment to attempt some of the items way beyond four sides will find this extremely time consuming to do.

Almost certainly not worth trying with a Morso! Joining the multi-angle stuff might not be all that easy either. Four sided items are often o.k. with an underpinner, but with more sides, joining them is much more difficult. Not for me, thanks. I think that there must easier ways to earn a living!

Some of the easier stuff shown is easy to figure out yourself and doesn't require money being spent on a book to know how to do it. Most of us who do stacked mouldings on a regular basis understand this stuff well enough already. For the amount of work that goes into stuff like this, I don't know that there's much of a market for this sort of thing at a price that makes any sense.

Yes. Making these little gee-gaws may be enjoyable but it's basically an indulgence.

From a business point of view it is more profitable to heave all the little bits in the bin.


* I once made a batch of mini-pictures by cutting images out of a print catalogue and laminating them.
Then I 'framed' them using bits of fillet mitred outside-in. I decorated a Christmas tree in the front display
window with them and they did look the biz and it did create a lot of interest. The trouble was, people wanted
to buy them. One lady was very keen as she did dolls-house making as a hobby. Problem was that to make them
for people rather than for Christmas tree decs I would have had to charge about 15 quids each. They were only
about an inch and a half wide. Would you pay that?

Not your average framer wrote: this requires accuracy of cutting way beyond the capabilities of most hobby woodworkers and those who have the ability and the necessary equoipment to attempt some of the items way beyond four side

In my view a Morso is not a suitable piece of equipment for making picture frames from factory-finished moulding unless you are incredibly skilled and practised. And even then you will waste a lot of moulding. Or use a lot of filler.

If it's bare wood mouldings, then it could be the perfect opportunity to make some chevrons to hand finish and add to your range of mouldings and finishes to display for your customers to choose from. It's aslo a great opportunity to practice and improve your hand finishing skills and even post a picture of two on this forum.

Simple - buy a second MORSØ

http://morsoe.com/en/indoor

Keith Hewitt wrote:Simple - buy a second MORSØ

http://morsoe.com/en/indoor

Sorry all - totally forgot I posted this thread and didn't tick notify.

Seems like I may have to bite the bullet and do some housework..

I do make up some ready mades but as others have said - the turnover of them does not reflect the hassle and time.

I just hate throwing away good wood!

I have a log burner at home but as most have said - finished mouldings would coat the flue and is a no - no.

I do have a fire pit though!

Many thanks for your input.

MAtt