Fig. 1. Fig. 3.
These nails, as well as the other metal-work, are to be coated with a mixture of dry lamp-black and shellac before they are driven on the board. The nails should be painted some time before they are to be used, so that the black coating will be thoroughly dry. After the nails are driven in place it may be necessary to go over them with a small brush and some of the black paint, to touch up places where the coating has chipped off.
The ornament below the picture and the hanger-straps are cut from sheet-lead about one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness. The stems are of ordinary iron wire, such as may be purchased at a hardware store for a few cents. Each piece of the design is separate, and may be easily cut from soft lead with an old pair of shears, and afterwards trimmed with a pocket-knife or a small file.
Drawings of the metal parts to this frame are shown in Fig. 2. A is the strap at the top, where the hanger is attached; B, the scrolls forming the hanger; C, one of the buds at the top of the stem of wire; D, the flower at the middle of the frame under the picture; E, one of the long leaves; and F, a shorter curved one. These are all painted black before they are applied to the board; then they are caught with large and small nails, the large ones for effect, the small and invisible ones to securely attach the metal ornaments to the wood.
Small staples made from pins with the heads cut off are used to hold the wire stems in place, but at the outer ends the wire is caught under the buds or flowers, where it is held in place with an upholsterer’s tack.
The ornamental hangers are made from thin strips of stove-pipe iron one-quarter of an inch wide, and may be shaped with a small pair of pliers or bent with the fingers. (See Chapter V., Venetian and Florentine Metal-work.) The long upper part of the strap-pieces are bent over and caught at the back of the frame, and form a staple, into which the lower loop of each hanger is made fast.
If the large, oval-headed nails which hold the picture to the board cannot be had at your hardware store, imitation heads may be cut from lead, blackened, and fastened on with two or three fine steel-nails.
A Dark Card Mounting
The mounting shown in Fig. 3 is constructed along the same lines as that of Fig. 1, but the hangers are different, and the picture, having a white edge, is mounted on a dark card. The nails are then driven on the white band, in order to make them more conspicuous than they would be if fastened on the outer margin.
A line may be drawn on a piece of smooth brown paper indicating the size of the frame, and another one to denote the location of the picture. The design should then be drawn on the paper with lead-pencil, and the little flowers, buds, and leaves fitted to this plan. The wire may also be bent to conform to the lines of the drawing, so that it will be an easy matter to apply the accurately fitted parts to the frame, where they are fastened with small, oval-headed tacks.