The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: Mr-FancyPants on January 27, 2018, 10:02:12 AM
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Wondering if anyone has any pointers in terms of picture framing for a number of art prints that I recently inherited. Nothing hugely valuable, but nice prints that I'd like to display & the mounting makes all the difference. I've had a few pieces framed professionally, but at $100-$400 a piece, I'd like to do a few myself.
How do people source a variety of frame profiles and conservation glass?
Wondering if there is a good resource for how to do things like shadow boxes & different mounting techniques?
I have all the standard woodworking tools so also wondering what I might need in terms of mats ect, so that I can do a nice quality job.
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Yea, that custom framing price always seems pretty ridiculous to me.
I go to Wal Mart, Hobby Lobby or similar and just buy a cheap print or picture in a frame I like, remove the picture and re-use the frame. Matting the perimeter is pretty easy if you need to do that.
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I can understand your avoidance to those prices. Once I saw a well made frame it became a benchmark for my Goodwill store searches. Quality comes cheap when you know what you are looking at.
With woodworking tools go for a trial run on one. Unleash your inner bad ass.
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As you've found out, custom framing is extremely expensive.
BUT - it's not hard to do yourself, and you can get archival quality for about 1/3 the price (and even cheaper if you don't care about UV-blocking glass/plexi)
I buy stock-sized pre-cut mats and backer online (I use www.redimat.com). Stock sizes are much cheaper than custom, though they offer custom-cut too. Instead of glass I typically use 1/8" plexi, which is easy to cut at home with either a bandsaw or even a sharp utility knife and straight-edge - if you need to cut at all. UV-resistant costs ~2.5x more, and UV+non-glare is about 4x more.
For frames - there's a lot of cheap wood frames out there (again, reditmat but also from places like target). Keeping it stock keeps cost low.
A few months ago I framed up some large-ish vintage prints (20x24"?) with UV-plexi and archival mat and backer and a maple frame I made myself. I think my out of pocket cost to do all three was around $150. CostCo wanted something like 3x$120=$360 + tax for archival+UV. Frame shop was even more.
Had I gone with non-UV plexi it would have been closer to $60 out of pocket for 3 prints.
Building your own frames (even fairly complex ones) isn't hard if you own a miter saw/tablesaw + router.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmyytuR-iVE (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RmyytuR-iVE)
you can use much nicer wood than the stock pine or MDF budget frames sold in Target or Walmart.
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I once went into a frameshop as a naive 18 year old and got quoted $400 for the job, I was so staggered that anything could cost that much I politely said I'd be going upstairs to retrieve the artwork and never went back, even though the shop was directly below my apartment. Since then I've re-used garage sale finds, never quite to my satisfaction, built about ten of my own frames including cutting the wood mats and glass (looked mediocre, but then again I'm not a woodworker like it sounds like you are), and assembled some stock sized mats (looked fine).
For custom stuff I've found a healthy middle ground at american frame ( https://www.americanframe.com/images/pdfs/wood-frame-assembly.pdf), where you can buy the pre-cut supplies, including the glass. Not the cheapest option, but over a decade later my frames that I assembled from their kits are still hanging and look quite good. Plus it marked the beginning of my DIY streak, so for that I'm forever grateful to their kits for sparking that.
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Thanks for the online resources. I did find that my local frame shop was considerably less than Michael's, and that they were much more flexible about doing exactly what I wanted. It still wasn't cheap though, so DIY might be worth a try.
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You know, I have never meet such services, and this is pretty strange. Really, I was never interested in sych case, but now that is pretty common for me, so I am also onterested. How do you think, is it better to look for such master in the Internet or try to find it in my hometown? And how can i check his quality? Well, it is difficult for me
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You know, I have never meet such services, and this is pretty strange. Really, I was never interested in sych case, but now that is pretty common for me, so I am also onterested. How do you think, is it better to look for such master in the Internet or try to find it in my hometown? And how can i check his quality? Well, it is difficult for me
well said FredVasco - great first post.
:-P