What would you ideal strut-back like?
Posted: Wed 09 Aug, 2017 7:11 pm
This question has been inspired by another current thread, where the subject of making your own strut backs was mentioned. Of course the first thing that would be interesting to know is are there any framers on this forum who either make their own strut-backs, or maybe are thinking about doing so?
I don't suppose that I'm the only one who has had customers bring in frames with custom made strut-backs. For myself it's difficult to put a number on how many times that this has happened, but I would not guess that I see these very often. Also, I would have to say that from memory went I see custom made strut-backs, it's pretty much always on older frames.
We used to have a local auctions based in our town and quite often stuff like this came from purchases in this local auctions, or other auctions and antique dealers. Although I used to get a decent amount of small jobs from antique dealers, I don't tend to get very much work from antique dealers at all now.
It's all different today, but the interesting question is, whether custom made strut-backs could have enough appeal to customers with up-market framing requirements. I don't know for sure, but now that really good quality strut-backs seem to be a thing of the past, perhaps now is the time to give this some thought.
For myself, I think the 6mm MDF, would be an easy material to work with, but would it be seen as an insufficient quality of material to appeal to the type of customers who would pay the extra for something better . To use a better quality material such as a decent wood that will not easily warp is likely to involve significantly more labour to produce a suitable result.
Any interesting opinions, or ideas?
I don't suppose that I'm the only one who has had customers bring in frames with custom made strut-backs. For myself it's difficult to put a number on how many times that this has happened, but I would not guess that I see these very often. Also, I would have to say that from memory went I see custom made strut-backs, it's pretty much always on older frames.
We used to have a local auctions based in our town and quite often stuff like this came from purchases in this local auctions, or other auctions and antique dealers. Although I used to get a decent amount of small jobs from antique dealers, I don't tend to get very much work from antique dealers at all now.
It's all different today, but the interesting question is, whether custom made strut-backs could have enough appeal to customers with up-market framing requirements. I don't know for sure, but now that really good quality strut-backs seem to be a thing of the past, perhaps now is the time to give this some thought.
For myself, I think the 6mm MDF, would be an easy material to work with, but would it be seen as an insufficient quality of material to appeal to the type of customers who would pay the extra for something better . To use a better quality material such as a decent wood that will not easily warp is likely to involve significantly more labour to produce a suitable result.
Any interesting opinions, or ideas?