this video is sponsored by rockler hey
everyone Michael Alm here so this week i built a set of frames. These are float
knotted frames for a friend of mine, Yuval these are his father's paintings,
and they were in pretty rough shape when I got them. The frames were falling apart
they were nailed in from the sides. Probably the original frames but not
done very well, so what we've done is upgraded to a float mount, which
means that it has an air gap all the way around it and and that keeps all the
pressure off of the frames. If you have a rabbeted edge, it could actually damage
the canvas. So this is a really clean modern look that's great for works like
canvas. If you're thinking about making frames in your shop for clients or even
for yourself this is a really handy thing to know, so stick around and
I'll show you how they're made! so first off I needed to remove the old
frames and fortunately they did not put up much of a fight.
They were just nailed in with a couple rusty nails and they popped free really
really easily. The second frame was pretty much the same as the first one
except for it had a whole bunch of staples in the corner holding the mitre
together. Fortunately that was just about all that was holding the mitre together,
so once I flip the frame over and pulled off the edges it was it was all free and
ready to be measured. Now I like to measure from multiple points so you'll
see if three points on each side just to make sure that things are nice and
square. Nothing's warped or anything and then I take the paintings out of the
room. All right so the measurements that I took I'm now gonna use to figure out
what size I need to cut down my material and in order to do that for a float mount
frame it's very very simple. You add your gap that you're gonna have on each side
plus the thickness the material. Now the gap and the thickness gets doubled
because it's on both sides. So in this case I have a gap of an eighth of an
inch, and material of 3/8 of an inch. That adds up to half an inch and then I
double that and that's one inch. So if I add an inch to each one of these
measurements than I'm getting the actual dimension of the outside of the frame. With the outside dimension figured out I can now rough cut all my material and I
usually add about an inch to each cut just to make sure that I have plenty of
material, in case something goes wrong. Now moving over the table saw I can
establish the depth of the frame and this is a pretty arbitrary measurement.
It depends on the look of the frame that you want but I went with an inch and 7/8
for these. To make the rip cut to establish the
width of the frame I'm setting up a feather board. This just holds the stock
really nice and tight to the fence while I'm working on it, and so I get a really
consistent cut. I'm cutting these at three-eighths of an inch and that was
just a thickness that I talked to the client about and he really liked to have
a nice thin reveal. Now we can cut the rabbet for the strainer this is 1/8 inch
rabbet, and the main thing to be concerned with here is is the top
measurement. That just needs to be a little bit thicker than the thickness of
the painting that you're working with. I'll explain what a strainer is in a
minute, don't worry about that, but now we can move on to cutting all of the miters.
I like to batch out miters. Since we're only making two here it's not quite as
big of a deal, but if you're making like a dozen of them, this would be a pretty
important step. I like to cut all the miters at once on one side, and that way
when I go to measure them, I can measure them all at once and prep the
stock for the for the next cut. Now that I've got all those measurements
laid out, let's talk about getting really nice miters. Having a nice sled is
important but I really like to cut my miters like three or four times before I
actually get it up to the line. This, I found, makes for a really nice miter and
then a way to double check them is to actually stack the two pieces together
and make sure they're the at the exact same height. With all the parts cut out
for the two frames I can now start assembling them and I'm a big fan of the
blue tape method. It's really effective and you don't need to buy a whole bunch
of expensive clamps. And you don't need a whole lot of clamping strength when it comes to picture frames you usually reinforce the miter anyway
so I'm just making sure it assembles really nicely is is the most important
part. so I'm doing a dry fit here and I like to do this before I actually glue
things up. The reason I'm doing that is is because
I want to test fit those paintings and that way I can tell if there are any
discrepancies. If my gaps wrong I can always recut things, unfortunately these
fit really nicely but I've definitely had some moments where I'll inch it. I'll
have to recut up apart so it's a way easy to recut at this phase then when
everything's glued together. So now that I've confirmed that they are
the right size I can glue them all up. I really like this little finger tool that
Rockler makes. It's it's fun thing I used to use my finger for everything
and now now I don't have to get my fingers all covering glue which is
nice so that you don't end up with a whole bunch of glue marks all over your
frame as you're assembling it. Now if there is a downside to the blue
tape method it's that it doesn't hold a frame square very well. So, as I'm gluing
these up I'm adding in these squares in the corners. I Just need it in one corner
to hold the whole thing together. Once the frames have at least half an hour
to dry I like to start working on the splines. This is my spline jig it's super
simple it's just basically an M glued together, but it allows my saw blade to
go up and through when I set the saw blade I make sure that it does not
pierce through the inside of the frame. That's really important and then I
just I just space it out in the spacing that I think looks the best.
I leave those blue tape bits on the corners because it helps prevent
tear-out and if they are for any reason not fully cured, the blue tape can
can do it a little bit of holding. So now we can cut those splines and I just
took one of the off cuts from the frame itself I like to match the wood as much
as possible and only cut one edge. Just to keep it nice and safe I ripped it on
the bandsaw once they get a little bit small, the bandsaw is the best thing
to use, and then cut these longer than the width of the slice in the
side of the frame. I like to cut them a little bit on the thick side, just
slightly, and then that way I can sand them to fit. The fit you're looking
for is a fit where they slot into the slot really smoothly, but they
can't be pulled back out. I've found that that's really nice. It tends to swell once you add glue, so you don't want to make them too
tight because you won't be able to get them fully registered into the
slot. With all the splines glued into place I
could trim them flush and I just use a pull saw for this. This is a really
affordable cheap pull saw maybe twenty bucks or so and and it does a great job.
I like to trim them a little bit on the fat side so that I can sand them flush
and then I found that that's the best way to go without without risking
damaging the side of the frame. Now I can move on to making the strainer.
And what is a strainer? So, it's a pretty common part in a
bunch of different styles of frames. In this case it's what supports the
canvas, and so it's really important to the structure of a float frame. I like to
cut them to fit and you can see I just use my chop saw for this, because the
miters are not that precise. You just want to make sure that they they fit
into the frame and have a little bit of play. You want about 1/32 of an inch
worth of play in each frame. Another benefit of that strainer is that if
you've got a springy side on a frame, it pulls everything nice and flat. So before we glue those
strainer parts together, I like to set up this jig to drill
some pocket holes into the actual strainer. These are set at a 45 degree
angle it's really simple. Just a two-by-four cut at 45, little block of
wood, and you want that hole to come out right at the corner of the wood. It takes
a little bit to get it set it up up, but once you do you can take all those parts
out, mark the locations for the different holes, and then you can start drilling
them out. I like to space them about three inches from the outside edge and
then I do about ten inches in between each hole I'll center them up on the
shorter sides I like to get at least three screw holes per length of strainer
side. And then you can take all those
sides and glue them up. I use a staple gun to hold
them together and reinforce the miter. You're going to want to staple
both sides of the miter on all four corners. At least two staples per side. it's always safe to check for square And make sure everything is just
right. These were nice and square. And then fit them into the frames make
sure that there's no issues. This one with the springy side you have to push it in
a little bit but that was pretty much perfect for me. and the second frame fit
real nice as well. if you've seen the hundred and forty-one frames video that
I put out a little while ago you'll have seen this technique before, and I love
this. This makes sanding these frames so much easier. I basically set up blocks on
the side of my table. I just screw them right into the side of the table and
hang up the frames while I sand them. This makes it really easy for me to
rotate while I sand and get those those sides really nice and flat. I'm working with 120 grit sandpaper here and it just takes care of all the
mill-marks. Any sort of imperfections. All the proud splines and stuff like that.
I sand all the sides making sure not to leave too many scratches on the miters
and then I will dust it off to look for any gaps and knot holes. Anything that
needs wood filler. I'm delicate with the wood filler, but it's really important
because it will show up in the stain if there's any knot holes or anything like
that. Then I sanded up to 320 grit and once that frame is done it's on to frame
number two. Alder is a much softer wood than walnut so you have to be kind of
careful with it. You don't want to sand it away or distort it, but it does stand
up a lot faster than the walnut. Now it's time to move on to finishing and
I'm going to be finishing both frames in different ways. I'm using just an
oil-based polyurethane here for the alder frame and that's gonna bring out
the warmth of it and it'll give it a really nice strong finish. I put
three coats of this on, sanding in between the coats, and it'll just bring
out the the warmth of that grain. For the walnut frame I'm gonna be blackening it and for that I'm gonna use this stain which I talked about in my finishes video. If you're really curious about all the finishes that I use in my shop go check
that video out. But the short of it is that it's an oil paint and dryer mixture. The dryer is called Galkyd. are a bunch of different
dryers out there and then the oil paint is Mars black oil paint and these two
get mixed together in a one-to-one ratio and the result is fantastic. It's a one
and done finish it comes out in a really nice black tone that you have a lot of
control over. The only downside is that it takes about a week to dry. I lay it on
pretty heavy and then wipe it off to the desired finish and then let it sit for
for about a week. The strainers get their own process which is basically just sanding them and painting them. I paint them a flat black. This is a
black gesso that I got from the art supply store. Once a week has gone by
I can burnish out the finish. I just use a piece of heavy duty cloth, this is
a cut off from a pair of old Carharts, and using a fair amount of pressure I
buff out the finish until I have a really nice sheen. You can see how good
that black and walnut looks. I like to buff out the polyurethane as well, it
just takes care of any high spots and evens out the sheen and then it's time
to install those now dry strainers. The strainers go in with screws, you really
want to test the length of your screws so you don't go out through the side of
your frame. I think these ones were three quarters of an inch and they were perfect for this application. Now I can insert the paintings and, in order
to keep the spacing really nice, I use these handy shims you guys have seen me
use these on numerous different projects they are invaluable in my shop. I'll post
a link down below to where you can pick them up. I basically use them to pin the
painting into the frame and then I can screw it in from the back through some
pre-drilled holes. With that done I can remove the handy shims and I like to
pull the back one out first just so that I don't snag on any of the canvas of the
painting. Painting number two is the exact same thing as the other painting,
screwed in from the back, handy shims, you know the deal. Now one
thing to note about these paintings is that I have set it so that the top edge
of the frame is a little bit proud of the surface of the painting that helps
if you're gonna flip the painting over or if you're gonna wrap it up. It
prevents the painting from being damaged. Now I'm putting on the hanging hardware
and that's really the last step before these things are done. Hey everyone thanks so much for watching
and let me know in the comments down below if you've got any questions about
this process. Big thank you to this week's sponsor, Rockler. I've been wearing
their tool pouch this entire time and I love this thing it is my new everyday
carry, so thank you Rockler. Thank you to my Patreon supporters, who support me
every month. You guys are fantastic! Other than that hit that like button, hit
that subscribe button, and I'll catch you on the next one. you
