Picture
Frame Molding !
Custom picture frame moldings 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.
Molding's usually come in wood, plastics and metals. We stock and sell
only wood moldings. Wood is still the ultimate material to make a beautiful
frame. 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 moldings 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 moldings. 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 molding will wobble and bend all over the place.
This is why Grignon's Art & Frame only uses wood moldings.
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 moldings. come in many grades of quality and finish.
The finish applied to many of the better moldings. 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 moldings. are finished by machine. The coatings are sprayed on
and left to dry as is. Sometimes the moldings. 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 molding cannot be judged by its size. A small narrow molding
finished with ten hand-rubbed coats of lacquer is going to cost lots
more than a much wider machine finished molding In fact, there are many
small filets which cost more per foot than a machine finished molding
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 molding one-inch
wide would be lost on a twenty six by forty inch picture. Most pictures
look best with a molding 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 moldings. 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 under-pinner 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 molding samples
and have thousands of feet of molding in stock. We buy all our molding
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 it self .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. A frame 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 moldings. 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 molding, flush with the molding These
moldings. are called "full canvas depth" which is a standard
3/4 inch.
Moldings. 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
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