The Framers Forum

Does anyone have an idea of how the frame is constructed in the photo?

Working from the outside in, it looks as if there’s a wide frame, followed by a mount, followed by a slip. When I looked closely though, it looks as if the middle section which I thought was mountboard has been mitred.

My customer is looking for me to produce something similar, but I’m not sure how it’s been created and wondered if anyone has done something similar or has any suggestions?

Also, if anyone knows the source of the frame itself, that would be appreciated.

That is a stacked moulding fame and it is made up of one moulding fitted in to another and sometimes we are talking about three, or four different frames one inside another. I make up plenty of them myself and they were very popular at one time, but there still are a few of us still making them. The thick looking mount, may well be a flat slip type moulding which has been mitred and joined together and may even have been hand finished to hide the joins.

I'm not really sure what the particular mouldings might be, but a few stacked mouldind frames displayed in the shop windows of a picture framing shop will often create some very useful interest from passers by looking in the window. The level of sales which may be generated from displaying such frames in your shop windows, will vary depending upon weather you are based in an area, where people don't mind spending money on nice things. My own location used to be in a good area for selling nice things, but not so much since the credit crunch.

In spite of all that, I still make up stacked moulding frames. I really enjoy making them and they usually look very special indeed. I've got quite a large stock of older discontinued mouldings and it's a good way of using up some of those and getting reasonable money from older stock, which looks really special as part of a stacked moulding frame.

The very inside, below the 1400 mount looks like paperwrapped bevelled foamboard. Thats how i do them, pin wheeled like that. Its far more economical and easier than using deep 3mm+ mountboard. You can make them seamless with the 1400 board or like this have a gap, showing some depth, but you do see the overlap line.

Sorry forget that, ive just seem the line on the "1400 mountboard" thats not mountboard is it...

Thanks for your replies.

Couple of questions if I may:-

Mark - not sure what you mean by a flat slit type moulding?

Justin - not sure what you mean by pin wheeled

Sorry if I'm being a bit thick!!

sorry it was meant to be slip type moulding. I've got a broken laptop and I can't always see what I have written very well.

Hi,
I’ve just done something very similar for a customer. I used a flat slip with a bevel from lion then hand painted because the customer wanted an off white.
The inside slip almost looks like a small bull nose moulding?
You then basically stack them all together and I fixed/secured them using canvas offsets.
Not sure of the origin of the outer frame... but I love the look of it all!