Jim's Non-Standard Picture Frames

Jimmy and Jenny Fraser, good friends of mine, received some original artwork from Jenny's sister in Panama who is an artist, and needed some frames for the 2 pieces. Each was about 6' long x 2' wide. He asked me if I could come up with something for him. The artwork was painted on 3/16" masonite. I came up with a way of mounting the artwork in ¼" x ¼" dados cut into ½" oak sides and so out in my garage, I put Fraser to work!

It worked out very nicely and so I thought I'd pass my method along, in case anyone else is looking for ideas on this sort of mounting.

We started with 2, 1" x 8" x 8' red oak boards, and ran them through my planer to get them down to ½" stock. The width of 1¾" was chosen and then the sides and ends were cut to the appropriate width & lengths.

Then the location of the channel in which the artwork would rest was chosen and then routed.

Then a visit to the sanding station was needed to clean up all the faces and edges of the pieces.

After all the faces and edges were cleaned up, it was time to cut the ends at 45° angles. With my dedicated Jorgenssen mitre saw, perfect mating 45° angles were cut and the frame's assembly began. Perfectly square 4" x 4" pieces of ¾" oak were screwed into each corner to assist in the "true square" assembly. Each side and end pieces were attached to those interior corner braces with 2 - 1¼" #8 countersunk wood screws. This added both stability & strength to the assembly. To hide the contersunk screwheads, oak buttons were epoxied to each and then stained with the rest of the project.

We also mounted a piece of ¾" oak plywood about 1½" wide between the 2 long sides, to keep them from bowing over time. Once cut to size, this strip and the 4 corner braces keep the frame's shape.

Now with the assembly fitted together. Jimmy cleans up our corners with my palm sander.

Now with only the staining procedure to be done, Jimmy takes his artwork home for finishing.

After applying the water based stain, this project is done. A couple of coats of Flecto water based satin finish topcoat, and the frames were reassembled, and hung high on Jimmy's hall wall, beside the circular staircase to his 2nd floor.

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