The Library of Work and Play: Home Decoration

by Charles Franklin Warner

PICTURE FRAMING

Inexpensive Framing Stock.—Picture-frame stock can be easily obtained of dealers in artists' supplies and in furniture stores in a great variety of styles. Much of it is so well prepared and so nicely finished that it leaves little to be desired. It is, therefore, often best to secure the stock for frames in this way. It is, however, somewhat expensive, so that, when economy is important, it behooves the young woodworker to prepare his own framing stock.

Very satisfactory frames 2 inches in width or less may be made from matched oak flooring, a section of which is here illustrated, by planing off the tongue and cutting away one side of the groove to furnish the inset for the glass. Wider flat frames of any thickness can, of course, be cut out from the ordinary stock. A special tool for cutting the inset is desirable but not necessary. A ¹⁄₄-inch saw cut may be made with a circular saw or even with a hand saw and the necessary removal of the wood accomplished by means of careful chiselling.

Picture framing stock made from oak flooring

The mitre joint

Mitres.—Frames may be joined at the corners in various ways. A common way is by the mitre joint illustrated in the drawing. To secure good joints of this kind it is necessary that the mitres be cut on an angle of exactly 45 degrees and that the pieces for the corresponding sides of the frame be precisely of the same length. Hand sawing is generally not exact enough to produce angles of sufficient accuracy even when an ordinary mitre box is used. Hand-sawed mitres, therefore, will require a little truing with a small plane. Great care must be exercised also in fitting the corners together. The common bench square is not large enough to prove the work. A better way is to lay a carpenter's framing square on the bench and fit the two pieces of the frame against the sides of the square, testing each corner in that way.

Clamping mitre joints

Gluing the Joints.—If the corners are unusually well fitted, a good joint can be made by first sizing the ends with glue and then firmly pressing the pieces together upon a true surface, leaving them undisturbed for four or five hours until the glue is hard. By sizing the ends of the joints is meant thoroughly filling the end pores with glue, rubbing it into the pores with another block. Generally speaking, however, it is necessary to make use of a mitre-clamping device. If a special clamping device is not available, one can be easily made by gluing small soft wood blocks to the parts of the frame near the corners, as shown in the accompanying drawing. In a half hour or so these blocks will become firmly set so that the mitre joints may be glued together, clamping them up with a hand screw. As already explained under the general directions on gluing, it is good practice for a beginner to glue up opposite corners and not attempt to glue up the two remaining corners until the first two are well set. When the first two corners are well set they should be nailed; and before the two remaining corners are glued it is well to try the parts together to see if they do not require a little correcting before gluing. These joints also should have light nailing after the glue has been set. In nailing, small holes should be made with a brad awl or drill in order to avoid splitting the corners, and long finishing nails should be used.

The Defect of Shrinking.—With proper tools the mitre joint is the easiest one to make, but it has one unavoidable defect, especially in wide frames. It is very difficult to get stock well seasoned and almost impossible to get it perfectly seasoned, so that wide frames, however well finished, must be expected to shrink a little after they are joined together. As most of this shrinking is across the width of the stock it is evident that it will tend to open the mitre joints on the inside of the corners. This is what happens almost invariably with joints made in this way from wide stock in picture framing. The same defect is also frequently observed in the interior finishing around windows and doors.

Halved lap joint

There are three other methods of joining the corners of picture frames—viz., the halved lap joint, the mortise and tenon joint, and the dowelled joint. A drawing is shown to illustrate these three kinds of corner joints, and it is hardly necessary to say that no one of them is open to the same objection that attaches to the mitre joint. All these joints require accurate cutting and rather more of it than the mitre joint requires, but they are more easily glued up. The halved lap joint is easily clamped up with a common hand screw, even when the frame is a very large one. But the other two require long clamps in order to pull the joints up well.

Mortise and tenon joint

Dowelled joint

Character of the Frame.—The kind of joint required depends upon the general character of the frame—whether it is to be heavy or light, wide or narrow, and whether made of picture frame moulding or of the plain framing stock with round or flat face; and the character of the frame is a matter of design, determined by the kind of picture, by its setting, and by other considerations discussed in Chapter III. How the plan for the construction of the frame for any given picture is influenced by such considerations may be seen in the example which follows: