The Framers Forum

I have at last got myself a table saw, so that I can slice up different mouldings and then combine that in various combinations as demonstrated on this forum by prosperro.

Here is a link to a thread originally showing this idea as shown by Prosperro.

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7415&p=62451&hilit ... aw+#p62451

I think that this is a really great idea and I supect that I not the only who was thinking the same thing when this idea was first demonstrated.

There still is a bandsaw, planner thicknesser, linisher and a few other goodies on my wish list.

Hope you have lots of fun with your new toy Mark - be interesting to see the stacked mouldings you create.

We are so lucky to have my Dad as an ex woodwork teacher with loads of kit in his shed that we get to use - and also a staircase manufacturer in our building who very kindly put moulding and lengths of wood through various of their machines for us too on a very regular basis. All the toys and none of the sawdust

Thanks Tudor Rose,

I've been wanting a table saw for a very long time and never had the opportunity until now. It's not a particularly expensive one, but at least it's got a 10" blade, as always the blade it comes with is only a ripping blade with far too few teeth, but at the same time I bought a 60 tooth Tungston carbide PTFE coated cross cut blade which should give a really clean cut.

Like I said, it's not an expensive one, but I'm saving my money to get other woodworking power tools as well. I've been comparing what's around and will give me the best I can afford on a limited budget. However, for want I need there's some fairly good kit about if you are really careful to pick the right stuff.

This saw is made by a company called Einhell which I know is a not bad company, because I already own a number of their tools, which I use a lot of the time and they have outlasted other tools I have been using by quite a good margin. I have not used the saw yet, but I don't suppose it will be very quite to use as quite table saws generally cost more, but it will do me quite nicely.

The larger number of teeth on the new blade will help to keep the noise generated by cutting wood down to a minimum, but wn't have much effect upon the noise from the brush driven motor. As always, you get what you pay for, so not much change there. However the motor is mounted inside the dust extraction casing, so a certain amount of the noise might get sucked away by the dust extractor, or in my case a cheap workshop vacuum cleaner.

Ear defenders.

Somewhere on Instagram I saw a 'recipe' for a heavily stacked ripple frame. Can't quite remember where now. But it took three lengths of A644 which had been variously cut up, turned around etc. It's on my list of projects for when I have three months spare and nothing else to do...

Well done for getting your table saw

Many moons ago I was visiting a "self build" exhibition in Harrogate. On one stand the show offer was a Dewalt flip over table saw for £600. It turned out to be one of my best buys ever. In one easy motion the table saw turns in to a chop saw and a mitre saw also, the blade can be angled to allow a heavy/chunky moulding to be mitred on it's back and the mitre can be "lengthened" to make the forth corner more accurate

I always drag mine out side, on a dry day, because of the dust (don't use it in the workshop) very little noise from mine so never a complaint from what few neighbours I have.

I hope you enjoy using your new saw and don't you be loosing any digits

Peter

Thanks Peter,

That flip over saw sounds like a great bit of kit, but I guess it should be for that sort of money. I reckon something like that would be really popular with anyone who needs to take their equipment out on the road. I gave my new table saw a quick 3 second blast this afternoon and it was quite loud, but a friend has told me that most of the noise comes from the blade and by fitting a blade with more teeth the noise should come down dramatically. Apparently, the number of teeth determine the frequency of the noise and as the frequency of the noise increases, the noise frequency finds less things in the saw that will resonate with that frequency, therefore it will get quieter. Hopefully this will also turn out to be true in the case of my saw.

I'm thinking that an electric mitre saw could be the next item on my list. The one I'm thinking about has an 8" blade and I need to have a close look at this before I buy it, as I need to check out the indexing mechanism the sets the 45 degrees either way. I'm thinking about facing the adjustable fences on this, with 1/2" ply and shimming this to calibrate the angle using paper shims. I already own an engineering grade vernier protractor which can resolve 3 minutes of arc, so I hoping that this will work out well. I also already have a Frameco measurement extension fitted to my Nobex Proman 110, so this will get transferred to the electric mitre saw. It remains to see what level of calibration will be possible, but nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I would suggest that unless you spend a fair bit, you will not get very decent results. The dewalt and makita saws are Ok, but the bosch, festool and Hitachi are the more accurate but still not as accurate as a morso.

I have tried evolution and erbauer as a smaller site saw, but they both went back as useless in terms of accuracy.

You can buy second hand and I would choose that option rather than a cheaper new one every time.

A great bit of kit which I use for bespoke framing is a router table. With some decent bits, you can do some really cool things. This can be done quite cheaply as you can make the table yourself.

Cheers

I had a standard 10" carpenters/contractors table saw before I got into picture framing and used it for over 30 years. It was an essential part of my equipment that made it possible to do projects that were not even a dream by other shops who only ordered chops.

I'm not specifically intending to mitre frame corners with this, as I will mainly be using my morso for joining frames, but I do want to enable myself to do a variety of other things from my shop besides just framing. Never the less accuracy still matter, because I want my work to be to the best standard I can do.

When I eventually retire from having a shop, I still would like to be doing something, because I can't imagine not doing anything at all. I think that I will always have the motivation to be doing something creative, so I'm getting kitted up now. No doubt quite a bit of this will connect with my shop while I still have the shop and in particular with stacked moulding frames and other special to order things as they come along.

Hi

This might sound like a silly question, but if I want to stack 2 mouldings together, should I make 2 frames, apply some glue, then drop the inner into the outer, or should I glue the 2 long pieces of moulding together first and then mitre the thicker composite moulding and make the frame as normal?

Thanks

Time for Prospero to dig out some photographs of his creations...

Jules007 wrote:Hi

This might sound like a silly question,

When you know the answer it does sound silly, but until you've been let into the secret it isn't. Imagine a stacked creation with several mouldings creating a monster maybe 8" wide and 8" deep. It wouldn't fit on your Morso and you'd be wasting huge quantities of the innermost moulding.

So do it just like making a frame with a slip. You make the individual frames and then glue them together. Some sort of gripfill adhesive, Screwfix cheapo solvented gripfill is about £1.50 a tube. When making the frames you should make them a pretty snug fit inside each other. You may just have to shave a little off the outside of the corners of the inner frame where the wedges have caused it to expand.

If you work from the outside inwards then it's easy to get a snug fit; working inside outwards is nothing like so easy. The plus of working inside outwards is you are more likely to get the measurements right... Don't ask how I know... but a chisel can be very useful for taking a sliver off the inside of the innermost moulding.

I generally start in the middle. Or at least the biggest bit. The thing to establish before you start is the difference between
the long and short sides. This is constant to all the layers. But I find no matter how accurate you try to cut things can drift off
a tad and an electric planer is handy for shaving things here and there.

Digital calipers can be very helpful when doing stacked frames. I start with the outermost frames and slide the other frames inside this on a film of PVA glue. James is correct about the corner swelling after joining with wedges, I sand down this swelling with a sandpaper block. After you have measured up the thickness of each moulding you will need to make an allowance for the glue gap otherwise the inside of the innermost frame may be too small for your picture. I allow 0.5mm all round for the glue, so that's 1mm for both sides.

Narrow crown staplers are great for fixing the moulding together while the glue sets, or you can use handy wrap, but make sure that nothing can move out of place while the glue is setting. Stacked moulding frames is not everyone's cup of tea, but some of us get hooked and enjoy doing this sort of thing. Don't feel that you have to be too rigid about whose technique you decide to follow, after a while you will find the way that works for you and that's just fine.

Thanks for your repilies.

I made one the other day by making 2 frames and they were too tight to fit which is why I asked the question. I ended up having to use the electric sander on the outside of the inside frame to make them fit.

It's nice to know that even experienced framers have similar problems.

Yes, but now you've had the experience, you now know how too do the same as the rest of us. Wasn't to bad after all. It's surprising how quickly new framers become old hands and after a while start sharing with the next generation of new forum members.

Stick with it, you'll be surprised how quickly you will exceed your own expectations.

I've got an old Scheppach table saw... really basic but it's incredibly useful... probably most used for increasing the rebate width of frames, where you're working to a sight size and rebate size on a canvas. Also great for just modifying a moulding somehow... cutting the back off or making a new moulding from something and adding a rebate. The only time I used for mitres was for a triangular frame in A160.

I really need to upgrade mine, but this one has been a vital piece of equipment for me for years.

Also, if you know what you are doing there is the possibility of creating a mitre sled to fit your table saw and making very accurate 45 degree cuts. It is possible to fine tune the 45 degree fences on the mitre sled to quite a considerable degree of accuracy using very fine shims.

The easy way of handling lengths of moulding when using a table saw is to cut the lengths of moulding oversize before finally cutting the mitres on the table saw. You can do this with a budget electric mitre saw and because you will be making the final cuts of both ends of each moulding length on something else, then the accuracy of the 45 degree cut on the mitre saw does not really matter.

Of course there is nothing to stop you from adding measurement stops to your mitre sled as well. Since buying the table saw, I have ordered the extension tables which will increase the overall size of the table quite a fair bit. Eventually, I will add a plywood top to the table saw, which has the potential to extend the table size of the table saw still futher.

I'm looking at getting a table saw, can anyone recommend an decent brand that they have used in a framing workshop?

Mine is a Ferm. Cheap and fairly cheerful. It works OK but probably not as easy to use as a better brand.
The worst bit is the guide which I sheared the locking pin off. It's had a bent nail in the lever for the past few
years. I've made a few mods to it so I can clamp fixed guides to the table. All in all it does the job but if I had
more space I'd think about getting a better one.

I use it for ripping stuff to size, widening rebates and sometimes creating moulding from PSE timber. I must add
that the moulding made from scratch is of the 'driftwood' persuasion. So any rough cuts are all to the good.