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Custom Framing Pictures. You can do it! You can put picture frames together
just like the professionals do with just a little practice and determination,
I am going to tell and show you how on this online picture framing school.
I am even going to reveal some secrets about putting picture frames together
that the pro's don't want you to know. It is easy so lets get started!
 First
you need a little back ground information so that you can understand the
processes involved. Many people write me about the possibility of buying
long length moulding from me so that they can make their own frames. What
they don't realize is that most of the frame shops around the country
don't even do this! There are too many things wrong with buying molding
this way. Let me explain. We buy long length moulding because we deal
wholesale and retail in moldings. To do this we order moldings by the
box lot full, hundreds of feet of the same style of moulding in each box,
and these are shipped to us by tractor trailer. It certainly does not
make sense for the average person to do this, nor even for most of the
picture frame shops operating in this country. For one thing, what frame
shop would want to stock hundreds of feet of the same style moulding that
may never be sold. Many of these boxes of molding cost $1000.00 each.
Multiply this by a couple of hundred mouldings or more and you got a big
inventory problem.
Another problem many people don't realize is that length moulding ordered
this way has a 21 percent waste factor when you go to cut it into picture
frames. Sometimes more, and unless you have a great deal of experience,
moulding brought this way can become very costly. I have seen many ten
foot pieces of molding that had only four feet of usable molding in it.
Another problem with the small framer ordering length moulding is that
is has to be shipped by tractor trailer. This is very costly. Length mouldings
cannot be shipped by mail or ups. So, what do the majority of picture
frame shops in this country do? They order chops and do not have to worry
about any of these problems or worry about the waste factor, because with
chops, there is no waste factor.
What is a chop? When you walk into a custom frame shop to have a picture
framed, the framer shows you many moulding samples on his wall. Usually,
he does not actually have these mouldings in stock at his place of business.
When you buy a picture frame from the custom framer, the framer orders
the "chop" from a wholesale dealer who cuts/chops the molding
to the exact size the custom framer wants, and ships it to the framer
and the framer puts the frame together. This is how at least 80 percent
or more of the frame shops in this country operate. Now here on this web
site you can do the exact same thing! You can order the exact same "chops"
from us that the customer framer orders, then just like him, you can put
the frame together. Which brings us to the how its done information.
After deciding on the frame you want, you have to know the exact size
of the frame you need before ordering it. You must be positive because
there are no returns or refunds allowed on cut picture frame molding.
Even the professional shops cannot return a cut molding. That is why they
charge a 50 % deposit. To cover their loss if the customer doesn't pick
up the finished picture.
What you have to order is the exact "glass size" you need.
If you need a frame that a piece of 16 by 20 glass fits into, then that
is what you order, a 16 by 20 frame. We will cut the moulding slightly
over size so that this piece of 16 X 20 glass or whatever, will fit into
the frame after you put the frame together. This is all done for you automatically
by us. You don't have to do any figuring. This is the way all custom frame
shops order their frames. You just have to do the same. You have to be
careful with painted canvases. Sometimes these are not square. For example,
for a 16 by 20 canvas, you may actually have to order a 16 1/4 by 20 1/8
inch frame, so that the canvas will "drop" into the frame after
the frame is put together, because the canvas corners were not "square".
Usually this does not happen, but you must be aware of this fact, because
when you put one of our frames together, the corners will be exactly "square".
 When
you order the frames from us the pieces of moulding will be cut on a professional
picture frame chopper. Then the pieces are carefully wrapped and shipped
to you via UPS. The chopper that we use is a heavy duty built piece of
machinery. The head and cutter blades are built from a very heavy piece
of metal. The moulding lays along side of the head and the blades come
down and slice through the wood like butter. The head and blades are locked
at exactly ninety degrees. The heavy head and blades cannot move and the
corners are cut exact every time. What you receive will be four pieces
of moulding with the corners all cut for you. All you have to do is put
the four corners together and you have just completed a picture frame.
Putting the frames together:
Open the package when you receive it from us and you will find the four
pieces of molding wrapped up in paper. Take these pieces and being very
careful not to drop them on the floor, (they always seem to land on their
ends damaging the ends) sort the pieces into two long and two short sides.
 Then
A professional will use one of the special corner markers we sell, and
mark the ends of all four molding pieces. Only a slight mark along the
top cut edge is needed. You should do the same thing, it makes a big difference
as to the looks of the finished frame.
You will need to have one of our framers
corner clamps screwed to your work bench. Without a corner vise you
will find it almost impossible to put a picture frame together and I would
strongly recommend that you let us put your picture frames together for
you.
Put the longer piece of moulding on the right side of the vise and lightly
clamp it into position. Do the same with the shorter piece in the left
side of the clamp allowing the corners to come together. You MUST always
put the long pieces on the right side and the shorter pieces on the left
side. You must remember to do this ALWAYS so that your picture frame will
come together properly. If you mess up, you will find it impossible to
put the frame together. You might want to mark the corners of your clamp
so that you will remember to do this.
 Now
"Work" the pieces of the mouldings until the corners come together
in the vise perfectly. The only difference between you and a professional
is that a pro knows how to "work" the corners. This is one of
those little secrets I told you about. Many times the corners all go together
great but sometimes you have to "work" them. That may mean twisting
one side or the other of the frame until it fits perfectly. It may mean
putting a piece of paper on the backside of the frame to cause the clamp
to put a twist on the frame so that it goes together perfectly. A professional
knows how to do this and almost never has to re-cut a frame. You can learn
to do the same thing in a short amount of time. A tip: try to get one
side of the frame about exact and then try to do most of the "working"
on the other piece only. Also be careful not to drop a corner. It happens
often on the first few frames you do. A drop may damage the corners making
it difficult to put the frame together properly.
When you have the frame corners together exactly, loosened the side of
the frame that you worked on the least, put our corner glue on that side
and and pushing the corner back into place clamp the frame pieces together
and wipe off the excess glue with a paper towel. Let this set up in your
vise for at least fifteen minutes, then carefully remove the two glued
pieces and lay them down on your work bench. Don't play with them! Now
work and glue the other two pieces of your picture frame together, remembering
to keep the long piece of mauling on the right side of the vise. Again
allow the glue on these two pieces to set up for at least fifteen minutes.
After removing these second two pieces from the corner vise, put both
glued pieces into position and glue together the third side of the picture
frame. You should really let this glued third side sit up for thirty minutes
because this is the side that is going to take the largest strain of putting
the frame together. Be patient.
After letting the third glued side sit up long enough, take the frame
pieces out of the corner vise and try to put the forth side together.
Hopefully this will go well as it almost always does. Because this is
the forth side, all mistakes in putting the frame together so far will
be compounded in this corner. Just be patient and work the frame. Remember,
a professional will almost never have to re-cut a frame. They make the
corner go together almost every time. Hopefully your first frames will
go together well and you will see sweet success right off the bat!
 There
are cases though where after all best efforts are given, a corner won't
go together. It happens to even the best of us. Remember, even a professional
frame shop cannot return a chop to the distributor, so what to do? He
will re-cut the corner. I will show you how to do this. (It is easier
to do if you haven't glued the corner yet. If you have I would advise
letting the corner dry for fifteen minutes first.)
We are going to say that your corner is in the corner vise and there
is a gap showing that you don't like after all attempts to fix it have
failed. Tighten the vise so that both sides of the frame are tightened
down securely. Then take a common hack saw and starting on top of the
frame cut down into the corner of the frame exactly on the corner. Follow
the joint line as best as you can trying to cut the same amount off both
sides of the frame. After this process, you must loosen the vise and remark
the corners of the frame with the corner markers again, then proceed to
put the fourth side of the frame back together.
 The
corner should now fit correctly, although once in a long while I have
had to cut a frame corner this way twice. Glue the corner, let set up
for thirty minutes before removing. You should be able to put together
a frame this way in a little over an hours time. With two vises you can
only shorten the time by just fifteen minutes. The reason pros have lots
of vises is so that they can work on more frames at once. Hopefully you
will end up with a frame with glued corners with little trouble. I usually
can put together one hundred to two hundred frames with out ever having
to re-cut one. Actually, I can't even remember the last time I did have
to re-cut one!
 Keep
in mind I just put the above information here so that you will have it
if necessary. The chops you receive will be very accurate, you just need
to learn how to "work" the corners. Practice makes perfect and
you will find putting frames together lots of fun. The professional
vise that we sell is much easier to put picture frames together with
but you can do it with the smaller vise easy enough, as has been shown.
The pro vise is made for putting together picture frames and is almost
useless for putting other kinds of moldings together.
Your not done yet! Your nice glued frame needs to be nailed together.
I know a number of professional frame shops that still use regular picture
framing nails to nail the frames together. This is done while the mouldings
are still in the professional vise. Most frame shops today use V-nails
to nail the frames together. We do the same thing in our shop. V nails
hold lots better than regular nails and produce a much sturdier frame.
Professionally made frames are glued together first, just as I have told
you. Then they are v-nailed together using a v- nailing machine. The cheaper
common frames you see in department stores are usually put together without
glue (the time factor) and less v- nails. That is the reason these frames
usually don't have good corners.
 V-nailing
machines are expensive costing many thousands of dollars. There are people
making smaller machines for home framers. These cost a few hundred dollars.
Now I am going to tell you a little known secret that all these company's
don't want you to know. You don't need Them! That is right, I am going
to show you how to v- nail a frame together without the use of any of
these machines! You will need a perfectly smooth bench top with a sturdy
leg under your working corner. This bench top is going to have to be really
smooth so that you don't mess up your nice frame. If it is not, purchase
a piece of Formica or something like that, about two feet square and place
that on the corner of your bench, directly over one of the bench legs.
Otherwise, if your bench top is maybe just passable, at least cover it
with just five sheets of newspaper. Five sheets work well, too much newspaper
pads the frame too much. You need smooth, firm, and sturdy.
Place your now glued frame upside down on your bench top (face side down)
with one corner of the frame directly over your bench tops leg. You are
now looking at the bottom of your frame. Using our V nails, notice that
one side of the v- nails have a paper backing and look darker than the
other sides. This side of the v- nails have been glued together somewhat,
to hold the nails together. This glued side is the "sharp" side.
Remember that!
 Separate
with your finger nails, three or four of these v nails and pull them off
the leaf. Using the needle nose pliers, hold the sharp edge of the v nails
against the wood of the frame as shown in the pictures and using our framing
hammer just pound them into the frame. You will find this very easy to
do. The nails drive good as long as you have the sharp sides down. Tip:
if looking down at the v nails, and you don't see the "edge"
of the nail, your looking at the sharp side and you need to turn it over.
You should place at least two v nails into each corner in a any molding,
three nails in a 1 1/2 inch moulding and four nails in a two inch moulding.
They hold well, that and the glue and you got a nice solid picture frame.
Nail all four corners of your picture frame this way and your done.
You can see why you need a smooth bench top, so that you don't damage
the front side of your picture frame. To see V-nails
on our order page click here.
 There
are some moldings are very, very difficult to work with. All the moldings
that we sell on this web site have been hand picked by me to be easy to
work with, easy to glue and nail. The mouldings that I sell are also hand
picked to be easy to repair, usually with just the picture frame marking
pens we sell. Some companies mouldings have a finish on them that just
plain refuses to take stains and are almost impossible to repair easy.
I have over time eliminated these from our operation.
Building your own frames this way is very much fun and mentally rewarding.
Even though I have an expensive v-nailing machine, I have v-nailed by
hand many hundreds of picture frames. Sometimes just for the fun of it,
and sometimes because I didn't want to bother with starting the compressor
that feeds my v-nailing machine. I have also v-nailed at least one picture
together, by hand this way, to test every single moulding that I sell
to make sure you can do easily.
It don't cost much in time and materials to try out my system of putting
picture frames together. You really should give it a try. You will find
it lots of fun! It is no where as difficult as you might think it is.
Most frames go together very easily and you will find our chops to be
easy to put together. I also know for a fact that you can put your picture
frames together faster than the time you have spent reading all this.
I have just tried to be very thoughal here so that I answer as many questions
as possible in this article as I can. You probably have more questions.
What you need to do is try this system out a couple of times and if you
are at all even a little bit of a builder you will figure out the rest.
I hope you have had fun learning about picture framing on this online
picture framing school.
Here's to you having lots of fun making frames,
Sincerely, Reimond Grignon
A Common Question I receive
"Is there a special tool to apply the "precision sharp V-shaped
wedge"? Intend to use on picture frame corners and wish to avoid
hammering."
Yes there are machines made that insert these wedges. Good ones cost
about $3500.00 to $9000.00. There are a few cheaper ones on the market,
and some used ones. These are unsatisfactory as they always bind and it
seems you have to spend three hours tearing the machines down every tenth
frame.
We offer the v wedges here for the home framer to use by just pounding
them in. If the frames are glued first, it works great, much better than
nails.
Thank you for visiting GrignonsArt.com
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