So when I left, I took more than a dozen of his prints with me, and left a promise that I would frame them up for him. It's now almost a year later and I'm about to head up for another visit, and there are still four of the damn things tucked behind the couch in the family room just waiting for me to find some more suitable wood and finish the job.
That does, however, mean that I have actually framed up ten of them and I figured I could at least share the ones that are already done.
The design of the frames is quite simple, mostly because a) the photos are already mounted on foam core, and b) there's no glass required. Also, the frames couldn't be TOO fancy or ornamental, just in case Dad had to put them into a show: you wouldn't want the frame to detract or distract from the photo.
Each side of the frame is a square with a stepped recess cut into one face. The photo is then mounted on the lowest step, with the face flush with the second step. Here's a cross-section of the frame so you can see what I mean:
The hardest part of the whole thing was finding some wood to use. For the first batch of three (done mostly as a proof of concept), I "borrowed" a couple of old fir two-by-fours from my Crazy Neighbour and planed them down to size. Then I used the dado blade in the tablesaw to create the steps, cut four pieces to size, and then glued them up into frames.
Of course, I found out at this point that not all of the photos were exactly the same size. There was a fair amount of variation, which meant that each frame had to be custom cut and sized for a specific photo.
At this point I had a bit of a dilemma. See, end-grain-to-end-grain contact is NOT a very strong joint, no matter how much glue you use. So I had to make the joint stronger - but I didn't want to use angle brackets or additional hardware as that would be cheating. Much to my delight, the answer lay in yet another woodworking jig: a spline jig!
Splines are extra pieces of wood that go across the grain of a joint to allow for more gluing surface and a much stronger long-grain-to-long-grain joint. But to cut across the joint and leave a space for a spline, I had to figure out a way to run just the corner of each frame across the table saw. (I could, I suppose, have cut them by hand, but where's the fun in that?)
After a bit of a false start (i.e., building a completely terrible, useless, not-even-remotely-square jig based on some plans I found on the Internet only to have it SUCK SO BAD that I threw it out), I came up with a design for a spline jig that would attach to my cross-cut sled.
Here's how the corner of the frame sits in it as it goes across the blade:
And this is the cut that it leaves across the miter:
Once the splines were cut, glued in, trimmed off, and finally sanded flush, I could finish the wood. I painted two of the first three black (the wood was pretty bland and crappy, so it wasn't really losing anything), but the one that I finished naturally was by far the nicest.
For the second batch, I used the top of the same old desk that I built the knife rack out of. The wood seemed to be mostly spruce or maybe pine, but it was perfectly seasoned and there was almost no warping of the pieces after I cut them. I managed to get enough for seven frames out of the desk top and the wood was pretty clear overall - some knots and holes, of course, but those just add character. Just as I was really getting going, however, I had to put them aside to get to work on the laundry cabinets and those took FOREVER AND EVER AND EVER.
I finally managed to get back to them once the cabinets were done, and for a few weeks, the entire garage was littered with half-assembled frames.
Instead of painting them, I finished all seven of the latest batch in just natural Danish oil and they turned out pretty spiffy. The splines are a really nice little design detail:
Then I glued the photos into place, covered over the back with some heavy weight plain paper, and they were done. (Dad didn't want any mounting hardware - said he'd take care of it himself and I was only too happy to oblige.)
Of course, the hardest part was yet to come... but I didn't take any pictures of the overly elaborate box I built to ship them in, so you'll just have to imagine it.
As for the photos and frames, I think they turned out all right. Oh, by the way, I should probably mention that these aren't exactly your standard 8x10 desktop photos. They're 36x24 - we're talking wall art here.
Now I just have to find the time and some decently dry wood to whip off four more and maybe I can stop worrying about building frames for a while. You know, provided I don't leave my folks' place in three weeks with another dozen godddamn photos....
