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Ah, you have hit my sweet spot. I make frames for my wife. The biggest thing is getting the mitered corners to be perfect 45s. The slightest bit over or under will prevent the frame from going together correctly.
I tried doing this on a really good sliding miter saw, but as good as it is, it's not perfect. So my wife bought me a Lyon Miter Trimmer. Pix. This thing was invented sometime in the 1880s and you'll find one in most professional framing shops, or a similar tools by other makers.
![Tool Machine Auto part Composite material Event]()
This beast (Grizzly) is machined to trim off maybe 1/16th inch off the end to a perfect 45. You can also do this on a table saw with a really precise miter gauge. Mine is an Incra 1000, which has an extension arm and a stop block. I still use the trimmer, but this thing will do the trick. Pix.
![Wood Motor vehicle Rolling stock Wheel Train]()
Because I am so fussy about 45s, my frames go together square by themselves. It is possible to buy band clamps to hold the frame square while the glue sets. I don't use them, instead I'm able to use these little clips at the corners like these, while it dries.
![Outerwear Sleeve Collar Tie Dress shirt]()
After the frame is assembled and dry, I usually cut a 1/8th spline into the corners. There are dozens of simple jigs that hold the frame in place and run in the miter track A full kerf blade works fine. Splines are an easy way to add strength. Endgrain to endgrain gluing is not very strong.
![Brown Wood Rectangle Wood stain Hardwood]()
Materials: Milled framing material isn't cheap. So if you have the tools, you might wish to make your own. The biggest annoyance with commercial materal is that you must have absolutely flat material, and if you buy a 10 ft length, you can almost count on 2-3 feet being unusable because there's a twist, a split, bow or some other imperfection at the end or ends. So you'll always have to buy much more than your measuring suggests. I love working with cherry, but a frame's materials alone can cost $50 and up, way up.
When you're learning, consider making some with pine, not construction grade, it's way too soft and won't finish worth a damn. Get those miter corners just right on cheaper material, it will save you some money and expensive grief. But you might also consider embellishing with angled cut profiles, or cutting a shallow groove and inlaying some of the 5/8ths or so wide strips (like these) they sell cheap at Home Depot. Chair railings may also be usable for frames.
But at some point, you will want to start using some more interesting, hardwoods. One way to do this is to buy a chunk of rough sawn hardwood that's nice and flat (or flatten it yourself), and using your router table with split fence to cut one edge nice and straight and square. Use your table saw to slice it into lengths somewhat longer than the long edge of the frame. For a 24 inch high frame, you have to have the 24, plus twice the thickness of the finished material, say, 2 inches, plus some extra because you will not always get it right the first time. So for me, I'd want a 36 inch long piece to start with. If you buy a 1/78ths (seven quarters) by five and a half inch piece, you can cut four one inch wide strips, enough for a very simple frame. My supplier requires a minimum of 4 feet, but sells chunks up to 8 inches wide, for even thicker frames.
Once cut into nice straight, flat strips, you can start milling them. There are endless ways to cut a profile, from simple angled cuts that slope in slightly, to very fancy profiles you cut with a picture frame making bit such as this elaborate set. But you can buy them individually as well.
![Toy Yellow Font Red Gas]()
This is overkill by my reckoning. But it shows you some of the variety of profiles that are available.
My wife paints on both stretched canvases and canvas covered boards. The former are thick and require a fairly large rabbet in which to insert the picture. So when you measure, the rabbet must be long enough to hold the picture and stretcher frame. This is tricky and I always leave a quarter inch of play in my initial measure, then when I trim the ends, I wind up with about 1/8th to 3/16 ths space around the picture. For stretched canvases, I cut about half an inch deep rabbet, but for flats, I go with 5/16ths. These depths give me room for the canvas plus space to put in tabs to retain the picture in the frame.
So now you mill each piece to the same depth. To facilitate this, I driled a 1/4inch hole at one end of the router table and a matching hole on the end/undeside of the fence. With a pin, this becomes a fulcrum. The other end swings free. That means I can make marks for each pass I make while cutting the profile. Sounds like excessive fiddling, but if you don't get the thickness of each piece the exact same thickness, you can't make the frame work. Clamp the loose end, and I also clamp the pivot end of the fence because I'm fussy.
OK, now we have the four pieces, and we've cut the profile and the rabbet. Sanding comes next. For that you have to deal with curves. I use shaped sanding blocks
![Rectangle Font Electronic device Fashion accessory Metal]()
and 3M flexible sanding medium wrapped around them.
![Publication Font Rectangle Parallel Magenta]()
I start with about 150 grit and sand til it's pretty smooth. I clean all the sawdust off with a tack cloth (wax soaked material) then apply a sanding sealer, which raises the grain a little, then I sand again with 220 grit. I don't find any further improvement by going finer. You can use regular sandpaper, but the 3M stuff works faster, is smoother, wraps snugly around the sanding block. Once you use it, you'll be spoiled.
Clean the piece off again, then with the utmost care, put the painting into one of the long pieces and mark the frame length with pencil so the mark bends around the rabbet and is visible on the back side. I use the 45 degree head on my square and mark where the cut should be, a bit outside the length marks. Repeat with the short piece. Transfer the mark to the top, inside of the material and cut the 45. I leave a 1/8th extra because I use the trimmer.
Use a stop block (built into the miter gauge I showed above), set to the total outside length. All pairs must be exactly the same length or the frame won't go together.
Once those miters are cut, I lay the pieces out and see if they meet and are square. If you have 3pieces that line up perfectly, but the fourth leaves a gap, then your miters are off. That doesn't happen with the miter trimmer, which also has a setup for a stop block.
If it al fits, the frame is square. So I coat the ends of each piece with a bit of glue, being careful not to get it on the front or profile side. I use a small soldering brush for that. I let that first coat dry, and then, with shiny butcher paper down so I don't glue the frame to the bench, I apply a light coat of glue as I build up the frame, side by side.end by end.
I apply the spring clamps to tighten up the joints and use a damp cloth to wipe off any squeeze out.
20-30 minutes later, I can GENTLY handle the frame. I have a fancy jig made for cutting the spines, and buy1/8th thick stock (I like purple heart, but any will do, I got ine at Rockler, and don't really use much.
After gluing and inserting the splines, the frame is really rugged. But I've also found that for whatever reason, I still find small, hairline gaps. Tiny, but I'm fussy, so I use a filler I found several years ago to fill it. It's an Aussie product I get on Amazon, comes in all kinds of wood finishes. I work it in with my fingers and wipe away any excess. I also used in once on a frame with a very slight twist to build up the mismatched corner. It sands and finishes just like the frame stock.
![Paint Liquid Plastic Service Electric blue]()
I realize this is a long piece, and is about museum quality frames, but the process for any frame is very similar.
Not going into finishing because there are a million ways to do it. I usually use a wipe on poly, either glossy or semigloss because it's easy and reliable, but I have a special frame for a very light painting that will be finished with a few layers of spray on laquer.
Last thing. If I use some of the fancy chair stops or decorative pine from HD, or any really thin material, there isn't room to make a rabbet. When that happens, I cut strips of pine into squares about 5/8ths square (or buy it in that size), mark where the frame fits on the back of the frame, and glue and pin nail these to the back to form a rabbet. Simple, but for stretched canvases it's an easy fix, and it also reinforces the corners. Wood breaks before a glue joint does,
Hope this has been helpful. There is a whole world of interesting frame ideas out there,some are easy, some are very difficult. The really large frames, especially if they are deep, are a serious challenge, but always doable after you get the basics down.
And now you understand why a really fine, professional hardwood frame can cost hundreds of dollars. They are someties a real work of art themselves.
I tried doing this on a really good sliding miter saw, but as good as it is, it's not perfect. So my wife bought me a Lyon Miter Trimmer. Pix. This thing was invented sometime in the 1880s and you'll find one in most professional framing shops, or a similar tools by other makers.
This beast (Grizzly) is machined to trim off maybe 1/16th inch off the end to a perfect 45. You can also do this on a table saw with a really precise miter gauge. Mine is an Incra 1000, which has an extension arm and a stop block. I still use the trimmer, but this thing will do the trick. Pix.
Because I am so fussy about 45s, my frames go together square by themselves. It is possible to buy band clamps to hold the frame square while the glue sets. I don't use them, instead I'm able to use these little clips at the corners like these, while it dries.
After the frame is assembled and dry, I usually cut a 1/8th spline into the corners. There are dozens of simple jigs that hold the frame in place and run in the miter track A full kerf blade works fine. Splines are an easy way to add strength. Endgrain to endgrain gluing is not very strong.
Materials: Milled framing material isn't cheap. So if you have the tools, you might wish to make your own. The biggest annoyance with commercial materal is that you must have absolutely flat material, and if you buy a 10 ft length, you can almost count on 2-3 feet being unusable because there's a twist, a split, bow or some other imperfection at the end or ends. So you'll always have to buy much more than your measuring suggests. I love working with cherry, but a frame's materials alone can cost $50 and up, way up.
When you're learning, consider making some with pine, not construction grade, it's way too soft and won't finish worth a damn. Get those miter corners just right on cheaper material, it will save you some money and expensive grief. But you might also consider embellishing with angled cut profiles, or cutting a shallow groove and inlaying some of the 5/8ths or so wide strips (like these) they sell cheap at Home Depot. Chair railings may also be usable for frames.
But at some point, you will want to start using some more interesting, hardwoods. One way to do this is to buy a chunk of rough sawn hardwood that's nice and flat (or flatten it yourself), and using your router table with split fence to cut one edge nice and straight and square. Use your table saw to slice it into lengths somewhat longer than the long edge of the frame. For a 24 inch high frame, you have to have the 24, plus twice the thickness of the finished material, say, 2 inches, plus some extra because you will not always get it right the first time. So for me, I'd want a 36 inch long piece to start with. If you buy a 1/78ths (seven quarters) by five and a half inch piece, you can cut four one inch wide strips, enough for a very simple frame. My supplier requires a minimum of 4 feet, but sells chunks up to 8 inches wide, for even thicker frames.
Once cut into nice straight, flat strips, you can start milling them. There are endless ways to cut a profile, from simple angled cuts that slope in slightly, to very fancy profiles you cut with a picture frame making bit such as this elaborate set. But you can buy them individually as well.
This is overkill by my reckoning. But it shows you some of the variety of profiles that are available.
My wife paints on both stretched canvases and canvas covered boards. The former are thick and require a fairly large rabbet in which to insert the picture. So when you measure, the rabbet must be long enough to hold the picture and stretcher frame. This is tricky and I always leave a quarter inch of play in my initial measure, then when I trim the ends, I wind up with about 1/8th to 3/16 ths space around the picture. For stretched canvases, I cut about half an inch deep rabbet, but for flats, I go with 5/16ths. These depths give me room for the canvas plus space to put in tabs to retain the picture in the frame.
So now you mill each piece to the same depth. To facilitate this, I driled a 1/4inch hole at one end of the router table and a matching hole on the end/undeside of the fence. With a pin, this becomes a fulcrum. The other end swings free. That means I can make marks for each pass I make while cutting the profile. Sounds like excessive fiddling, but if you don't get the thickness of each piece the exact same thickness, you can't make the frame work. Clamp the loose end, and I also clamp the pivot end of the fence because I'm fussy.
OK, now we have the four pieces, and we've cut the profile and the rabbet. Sanding comes next. For that you have to deal with curves. I use shaped sanding blocks
and 3M flexible sanding medium wrapped around them.
I start with about 150 grit and sand til it's pretty smooth. I clean all the sawdust off with a tack cloth (wax soaked material) then apply a sanding sealer, which raises the grain a little, then I sand again with 220 grit. I don't find any further improvement by going finer. You can use regular sandpaper, but the 3M stuff works faster, is smoother, wraps snugly around the sanding block. Once you use it, you'll be spoiled.
Clean the piece off again, then with the utmost care, put the painting into one of the long pieces and mark the frame length with pencil so the mark bends around the rabbet and is visible on the back side. I use the 45 degree head on my square and mark where the cut should be, a bit outside the length marks. Repeat with the short piece. Transfer the mark to the top, inside of the material and cut the 45. I leave a 1/8th extra because I use the trimmer.
Use a stop block (built into the miter gauge I showed above), set to the total outside length. All pairs must be exactly the same length or the frame won't go together.
Once those miters are cut, I lay the pieces out and see if they meet and are square. If you have 3pieces that line up perfectly, but the fourth leaves a gap, then your miters are off. That doesn't happen with the miter trimmer, which also has a setup for a stop block.
If it al fits, the frame is square. So I coat the ends of each piece with a bit of glue, being careful not to get it on the front or profile side. I use a small soldering brush for that. I let that first coat dry, and then, with shiny butcher paper down so I don't glue the frame to the bench, I apply a light coat of glue as I build up the frame, side by side.end by end.
I apply the spring clamps to tighten up the joints and use a damp cloth to wipe off any squeeze out.
20-30 minutes later, I can GENTLY handle the frame. I have a fancy jig made for cutting the spines, and buy1/8th thick stock (I like purple heart, but any will do, I got ine at Rockler, and don't really use much.
After gluing and inserting the splines, the frame is really rugged. But I've also found that for whatever reason, I still find small, hairline gaps. Tiny, but I'm fussy, so I use a filler I found several years ago to fill it. It's an Aussie product I get on Amazon, comes in all kinds of wood finishes. I work it in with my fingers and wipe away any excess. I also used in once on a frame with a very slight twist to build up the mismatched corner. It sands and finishes just like the frame stock.
I realize this is a long piece, and is about museum quality frames, but the process for any frame is very similar.
Not going into finishing because there are a million ways to do it. I usually use a wipe on poly, either glossy or semigloss because it's easy and reliable, but I have a special frame for a very light painting that will be finished with a few layers of spray on laquer.
Last thing. If I use some of the fancy chair stops or decorative pine from HD, or any really thin material, there isn't room to make a rabbet. When that happens, I cut strips of pine into squares about 5/8ths square (or buy it in that size), mark where the frame fits on the back of the frame, and glue and pin nail these to the back to form a rabbet. Simple, but for stretched canvases it's an easy fix, and it also reinforces the corners. Wood breaks before a glue joint does,
Hope this has been helpful. There is a whole world of interesting frame ideas out there,some are easy, some are very difficult. The really large frames, especially if they are deep, are a serious challenge, but always doable after you get the basics down.
And now you understand why a really fine, professional hardwood frame can cost hundreds of dollars. They are someties a real work of art themselves.
