shirt framing

[Phil Darby]

I've never framed a shirt before and would appreciate tips about forming the box and attatching shirt.
Many thanks Phil

[prospero]

Hi and Welcome Phil.

Making the frame is simple enough. There are quite a number of deep mouldings available for the purpose that have complimentary spacers to give about 1" clearance between glass and back.

As far as mounting the shirt..... I'll leave that for someone else to explain. Never actually having done one.

[shepherdn]

Hi Phil

I asked the same question about a month ago and in case nobody comes back to you I can let you know what I have found out - however, I am not an experienced framer so I can not guarantee it is the right way!

If you search on you tube for box framing there is a very useful demonstration on there, I haven't tried it yet but it was very helpful and looked quite straight forward.

For the shirt first of all I made a template out of foamcore and then I pinned the shirt to that with dress making pins. I then sewed it using a hemming stictch however I have heard that people use a tag gun - available from Lion picture framing - if you search for my previous post you will see what a couple of framers said about this.

I am then intending on sewing the foamcore to the mountboard and hopefully voila....................

[easypopsgcf]

I make my template out of mountboard, and to secure the top i use tapestry tape, which is (if you dont know) a VERY strong double sided tape. I always make sure the customer is aware of the method. the tape goes on the back of the template.
1. I have never had anyone complain
2. I have never had one back

I am aware that there will be those of you who might think using tape for this is wrong, and not fully reversible, but as i have said i have never had one returned either to repair it or to take the shirt out so someone can re-use it .......which is very very unlikely.
Once i have stretched the top i secure it to the backing board with a few 8mm staples through the template (below the neckline,out of sight),
once you are at that stage its just a simple frame, glass+backing, a double mount and some strips of foamcore.......dead easy
I must have done in excess of 300 of these over the years.......I have changed my method quite a few times, i used to sew these but never got the shirt tight enough, and after looking at the tac gun i knew i would never use one of those.
here are a couple of pictures.....very poor quality though as taken on the phone and never intended to show them really

[Roboframer]

i used to sew these but never got the shirt tight enough, and after looking at the tac gun i knew i would never use one of those.

Why does the shirt/shorts have to be tight? They don't look that way on the shelf/rail and they don't look that way on the player, they are loose fitting garments and to my eye a shirt stretched tightly looks (what I call) 'embalmed'.

Nielsen sell a ready made aluminium shirt frame, the front clips on and inside there's just a hanger - that's very 'reversible' and it looks just fine.

I realise that any shirt brought in for framing is 9999 out of 10000 never going to be played in, or even worn again, it could possibly need to be removed for re-framing though and it could possibly be valuable, and more reversible non-adhesive methods, that give a more natural look are just as easy and quick as adhesives and staples, and no more expensive.

You could argue that a staple pierces the fabric just like a needle does, but with a needle (sewing type or tag gun type) you can pierce it exactly where you want, probably through a hole in the mesh, through an existing stitch hole, (and in both of those cases you've pierced nothing) concealed under a motif, whatever.

I use a combination of tag gun and stitches on most shirts and usually do not have a window mount but a glass spacer in the rebate (usually foam board) lined with mountboard to match/contrast with the backing mount, or in another team colour.

[Bagpuss]

..I have changed my method quite a few times, i used to sew these but never got the shirt tight enough, and after looking at the tac gun i knew i would never use one of those.

Great looking football shirt, very neat looking indeed. Just wondering why you decided against using a tag gun ?
cheers,
Bagpuss

[Not your average framer]

Stitching does not take very long to do and is not only the best method, but gives you far more control of the finished result that a tag gun.

Roboframer posted an excellent item on this forum about how to present and frame shirts, hopefully someone will provide the necessary link.

I mostly follow the Roboframer method and generally charge a minimum of £125 and quite often a lot more than that.

I also offer for those who want something cheaper, my £99 special. This is a quick and easy, cheap method, but it is definately not to conservation standards.

It uses two mountboard templates, one inside the shirt and one behind. The sides of the shirt are stretched round behind the rear template and tagged to the rear template with a tag gun.

Self adhesive velcro is attached in four positions to the exposed area of the rear mountboard and stapled through the mountboard using a plier type stapler. As we all know staples can rust, so I fix a piece of Linco foil barrier tape between the rear of the staples and the fabric at the back of the shirt to elliminate this risk. Four more pieces of velcro are stapled onto the mountboard at the back of the frame, the shirt is positioned as required and pressure is applied to engage the velcro.

For this price the sleeves are folded behind and there is no mount at the front of the frame. After a bit of practice you can do one of these in approx 30 to 45 minutes.

It's still a reasonably nice quality of the frame, but the customer only gets a limited choice of colours for the mountboard behind the shirt. For that kind of price I don't want to be wasting time while the customer tries to decide which colour of mountboard they want. I have been known to do a £99 special while the customer waits in the shop.

[Custard]

The "tight as a drum" to "comfort fit" spectrum is interesting. I've seen examples of shirts that went too far in either direction and looked equally wrong. Most recently a signed Pele shirt that's so rigid it just didn't look like a shirt anymore. I haven't done many of these but when I do I aim for a "freshly ironed" look!

[easypopsgcf]

I would never say " I'm right and everyone else is wrong".........its just the way it has evolved for me, and i now think i have a good system, with very good results?
I personally prefer the 'tight look' and to be honest i feel if i tried to do a loose one i would never be happy with the results, and i have had quite a few to reframe after customers liked the way i had done it. No complaints , only compliments?
There is no right or wrong way, only happy customers.

As for the tag gun.........thats ok for holding price labels to clothes but no use as a framing tool (in my opinion)

[Roboframer]

Well, Phil's getting some different ideas, which is good.

[mitretight]

Here's one I did earlier, using a 5mm foam-board template, pinned with T pins at the back and secured th the undermount by threading fine, strong wire, top and bottom through foam-board shirt and undermount, knotting and taping at the back. Very secure.

[Jonny2morsos]

I use 5mm foamboard cut to shape, pins along the bottom and sew the sleeves lacing style to stretch reasonable flat (not drum tight). Anchored to back board which is a complimentary coloured mount board with loops of thread sewn with a curved needle. 10mm of foambaord between front and back mounts to give some space and a double mount at the front using a colour from the shirt (or as near as poss.) as the inner. Deep rebate moulding, most commonly black.

I charge £150 minimum(non negiotable) and am not interested in doing cheaper low spec jobs.

Here is one from a little while ago:

Manchester-City-Shirt-low-r.jpg (21.91 KiB) Viewed 19674 times

[SPF]

A card template is a must for sports shirts and other garments, avoid the plastic hangers as sold by Lion unless you intend to make a cabinet frame where the items can be removed easily.

I too advocate the hand-stitched method although I do use the tag-gun too (as long as the tags can be hidden well).

I have framed a West Ham kit in the past that the customer wanted to see as if in movement, this was quite a testing exercise which involved various ruffled creases, shame I never took any photos. Doh!

[dougie]

i use an arqadia obeche moulding 155 400? 000,its plenty deep enough and lion do a 19 mm spacer both of whitch can be stained to suit although black seems to be the favourite,i use mount card template inside the shirt and then tag it through a larger piece of mountcard backing,its easy enough to hide the tags inside the shirt but watch your fingers when pushing the needle of the gun through,its a fairly quick method and i dont use a mount on the frame,i find the shirts are generally too big for that,jumbo card is an extra cost that i feel isnt worth it

[Nigel Nobody]

I make my template out of mountboard, and to secure the top i use tapestry tape, which is (if you dont know) a VERY strong double sided tape. I always make sure the customer is aware of the method. the tape goes on the back of the template.
1. I have never had anyone complain
2. I have never had one back

I Must say I like your designs. They look great!

I would also like to say that your two reasons for justifying the use of adhesive tape as a 'non reversible' method are not really an appropriate criteria to make a judgement of "non-reversibility" or suitability. One of the biggest problems with adhesive tapes is that the adhesive migrates into anything porous that it touches and is therefore not reversible.
"Tapestry Tape" is just another invention of someone who knows little and cares little about long term effects of adhesives on fabrics. Anyone could quite easily package cow manure and label it "Shoe Polish", but that doesn't mean it would be great shoe polish.


I would like to encourage everyone to think very seriously about not using adhesives to mount framed items that are obviously precious to their owner and think seriously about using mechanical methods like stitching and tagging that were mentioned by others in this topic.

Just as a matter of interest, I don't think I could frame shirts for the prices some of you do. My bottom price is $590. There is a certain level that I will not go below and only yesterday I turned away a another jersey job. The materials for this job costs around 1/4 of that, tax is $54 and they take around 5 hours to do.
Interesting that in another thread someone is going to do a whole shirt frame for $65, which is less than half the cost of my materials. I guess we each cater for different areas of the market.

[Phil Darby]

Many thanks for tips and advice. Much appreciated! Foam board has been mentioned. Is this a type of backing board?

[Nigel Nobody]

Many thanks for tips and advice. Much appreciated! Foam board has been mentioned. Is this a type of backing board?

Is "Canon" a brand of camera!
Phil,
I strongly advise you to do a framing course asap.

[framemaker]

Hi Phil,

I use a deep frame, with a matching spacer. I use a tag gun to fix the shirt. I am not a fan of tightly wrapped shirts or mounts around them.

Foamboard is a real multi purpose framing material, comes in various thicknesses (3,5, and 10mm), and comes in various sheet sizes (typically about 32" x 40"), and various qualities.
It is one of the most common backing boards in USA and Australia, it is not that popular as a backing board over here, although I think it is being used more and more for this purpose. It is lightweight, rigid, and flat, but can be dented easily.

It makes an excellent substrate for dry mounting, cold mounting, etc. It can be used to stretch textiles, pack out the area behind mounts when using mount slips, pack out frame rebates when you want to show as much of an image as possible, to fill out sports shirts, it can be cut with a bevel which can be covered in decorative tapes or material to give a deep inner mount, you can use it between two mounts to create depth and shadow, you can face it with mountboard to create matching spacers for the colour of board you mount your sport shirt onto, and the last use I can think of is to use it to float mount artwork.

[Roboframer]

Also comes in black!

Check this out for another use http://www.thegrumble.com/showthread.php?t=52430 (you have to be registered on The Grumble to read)

[sterlingservice]

Hi there all,

Regarding shirt framing we do a lot of them. We frame them in such a manner that causes no damage to the item being framed whatsoever.We do not use staples nor glues nor sticky tapes and all shirts are shadow box framed in order to keep the shirt away from the glass.Whilst some of you may use sticky tapes I think was it Roboframer who hit the nail on the head with his good advice , using sticky tape is not good even though the shirt may never be worn again as it can damage the fabric due to the acidic adhesive and thus de-values the shirt.We purchase our supplies in major quantities and pass this saving onto our customers.We too find people want a £200 job for £30 ! although we charge much less complete depending whether plaques are required , photos to be included , ticket stubs , COA etc.(much less than £200 that is )..!!

We agree shirt framing takes a long time and is very labour intensive especially the way we do it. We do however have a fully qualified specialised shirt framer who basically does nothing but shirt framing!

Should any of you guys wish to offer your customers a shirt framing service but either are unable or wish not to do the work due to the low margins involved or labour intensive time consuming process or when customers wish to pay very little then get in touch with us.

You can offer your customers a shirt framing service and we shall do the work for you.We shall even send the finished framed shirt to your customers with no mention of us.All you would have to do is send the shirt to us with relevant information including delivery address.We shall frame your customers shirt and deliver it to them.We can even include your details on the package and no-one need know that you havent done the work! How much will this be for you ? - We shall charge you £100 (as at Nov 2010) delivered to your customer or delivered back to you.You can charge your customer what you like!

We are North West based and offer a personal in house delivery service throughout Lancashire Yorkshire and Cumbria with regions further afield being delivered by carrier.We do however deliver personally anywhere in the UK depending on the quantity.So if you get customers requiring shirt framing that are North West based YOU can still offer them a shirt framing service and we shall take care of it for you!

Get in touch soon guys.We look forward to working with you