 Picture
Frames!
Custom picture frame mouldings come in many finishes and grades. Some
have such magnificent finishes on them they are an art form in themselves.
The frames are the equal of the finest furniture. Mouldings usually come
in wood, plastics and metals. Grignon's Art & Frame only carries wood
moldings. Wood is still the ultimate material to make a beautiful frame
out of. When you have a picture custom framed, you want it to look custom
framed. To our mind, you can only get that look using wood moldings.
Pictures framed with metal mouldings always seem to look like they came
from a department store. Metal frames also deteriorate after a few years
in areas with any high moisture content. They also have the distinction
of being known as the "cheap way to frame." It is very difficult
to sell high quality pictures using metal frames. Metal frames have many
disadvantages such as corners coming loose, rusting and others.
We also do not carry the newer plastic mouldings. These moldings have
many problems. They are very brittle and the corners will break if dropped
even when glued. I mean the whole corners will break out, not just come
undone. Another problem is that it takes twice as long to cut and put
together a plastic molding because it takes the glue so long to dry. Many
times you have to leave the corner in the vise overnight. For each corner!
Some framers use hot glue to try to circumvent this problem, but this
kind of glue does little to actually hold the frames together for any
length of time. Plastic frames are also very flimsy. When you hold up
a two-inch wide, ten-foot stick of wood molding you got a nice firm piece
of material in your hands. The same stick of plastic moulding will wobble
and bend all over the place. This is why Grignon's Art & Frame only
uses wood mouldings in all our frames.
Wood moldings can take almost any form from hand laid gold leaf to rustic
barn woods and rich weathered driftwood styles. There are hand-rubbed
finishes in cherry, mahogany, clear maple, and walnut plus lots of others.
The moldings available today can be incredibly beautiful.
Wood mouldings come in many grades of quality and finish. The finish
applied to many of the better mouldings is still done by hand. Using a
molding with a nice lacquered finish for example, each coat of lacquer
may be hand rubbed before the next coat goes on. Lower grades of molding
may only have one or two coats of lacquer on them while higher grades
have eight to twelve coats. The more coats of finish are lots more work,
and so cost more.
 Other
wood mouldings are finished by machine. The coatings are sprayed on and
left to dry as is. Sometimes the mouldings are given more than one coat
of finish. The cheaper grades of molding are made by the hundreds of thousands
of feet at a time using low grade material with only one or two finish
coats and sold to large shops that produce millions of ready made frames
for department stores. These frames are quickly cut and stapled together,
usually the corners are not glued and eventually come apart. They serve
their purpose of framing the snapshots and whatever, but this is not custom
framing. Frames made of plastic can be made even cheaper and so are beginning
to uproot wooden frames in department stores.
 One
mistake that many people make is to acquaint molding size with price.
For example, someone will come into our frame shop and choose a really
narrow molding maybe thinking to keep the price down thinking the narrow
molding is cheaper. Many times it is, but many times it is not. The price
of a moulding cannot be judged by its size. A small narrow moulding finished
with ten hand-rubbed coats of lacquer is going to cost lots more than
a much wider machine finished moulding. In fact, there are many small
filets which cost more per foot than a machine finished moulding. I have
had lots of customers pick out a molding which was much to narrow for
their picture, and were very surprised when I would show them a wider
molding that went really well with their picture, at a lesser cost than
the narrow one they had picked out!
In choosing a molding you should always pick the one that brings your
art and matting combination to life! A moulding one-inch wide would be
lost on a twenty six by forty inch picture. Most pictures look best with
a moulding that it not too narrow nor too wide. If in doubt you should
really leave the choice of width up to your framer who has framed thousands
of pictures and usually knows what looks right.
 Most
professional frame shops will show you their line of mouldings using what
are called corner samples. These samples are bought from their suppliers
at a lesser cost then the framer can cut them himself. These are samples
only. Usually the corners haven’t been glued and due to all the handling
may even be banged up a bit. Please keep in mind your framed pictures
will be framed using the nicest woods. So if you see a loose corner or
ding, please forgive. All our corners are put in a corner vise and are
properly glued together to stay together and we guarantee that they do! After
the corners are glued together, the frame is put onto a underpinner which
drives nails up into each corner locking the frame corners together so
that they cannot come apart.
Grignon's Art & Frame carries over 3000 moulding samples and have
thousands of feet of molding in stock. We buy all our moulding long length
and cut and put together every frame ourselves. We do not use ready made
frames on any of our custom framed art. We try to have complete control
over every aspect of our framing to assure you of quality products.
Commonly Asked Question
Rick writes:
I enjoy buying original new paintings but don't enjoy the expense of
buying
a frame. Even more, I don't know how. I bought a 16 by 20 canvas but it
sort
of looks like it can hang by iteself .It has a sort of small box like
feature that is around 3/4 inch wide, so is that called a canvas? If I
buy a
16 by 20 frame would the normal frame fit this thickness? Thanks so much
, I
hope to buy from you guys. I measure the painting length by width and
then
the thickness
Assuming I am measuring right , it might be exactly 3/4 thickness . thanks
and what else do I need for the painting. screws, elbows , I am confused
,
can you help? thanks I plan to buy more paintings in the future if I can
help save bucks framing it .
Our Answer:
To order a frame for a canvas painting that is 16 x 20 you would order
a 16
x 20 frame. Aframe 16 1/4 x 20 would you would order a frame 16 1/4 x
20.
All frames we make will be cut slightly oversize so that your painting
will
drop right into it.
Most frame mouldings are made for pictures and prints. These frames have
a
rappet depth of 3/8 inch. If you put a canvas painting into one of these
frames, the back would stick out 3/8 inch causing the frame to stick out
from the wall 3/8 of an inch. Which is fine with many people. Others want
the canvas to set into the moulding, flush with the moulding. These
mouldings are called "full canvas depth" which is a standard
3/4 inch.
Mouldings listed as full canvas depth will take a 3/4 inch thick canvas.
What works best to put a canvas painting into a frame is to use our offset
clips with screws located on our hardware page. These are made for
just
this purpose.
To really bring out the full potential of a canvas painting it should
have
a nice frame put on it. Without a frame it will never look "done".
I
wouldn't hang a painting without a frame on it. I'd store it first, but
that is just my personal opinion.
Good frames aren't cheap. There are sites on the web where you can buy
a
frame for a 16 x 20 picture costing many thousands of dollars for just
the
one frame. Cheap is a wood frame finished with paper over the wood,
plastic frames, or many metal frames which rust in time. Cheap can be
had
at department stores.
It is all in the look you want to display when others see your art hanging
on your wall. Almost everyone entering your home, looking at your art
will
notice the difference between a cheap frame and a good frame. No frame
at
all is really cheap. You takes your choice in what you wish to display.
Thank You for visiting GrignonsArt.com
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