Help 10 ft large frame with five individual openings

Create a Post
You could frame each individually and then place them into a single frame around the 5.
 
According to the description on pinterest it is individual openings with acrylic. Hard to tell from the picture but I agree it would be easiest to build 5 frames with one larger around the outside. When looking at the picture it appears that there is a joint around the outside which might be the way they built that one.
 
There are several ways to make that 5opening frame. The makers of this one chose the cheap and dirty way. They used off the shelf moulding for the outside frame and joined it the way a picture frame would be. For the dividers, they simply milled thin, flat stock and fastened the dividers under the lip of the outer frame. The correct way would be to mill the moulding for the outer frame with a profile that could be duplicated on the surface of the t moulding that would be bird's mouthed into the outer frame and which would be flush with the outer moulding. A chopper is really good for cutting the birds mouth mortises. If there is no pattern on the outer moulding that would have to be duplicated on the t moulding, it's pretty simple. The way I would try to do would be to have the t moulding cross pieces die into the legs of the outer moulding. The t moulding dividers would have fashioned tenons that would be received by mortises undermthe rabbits of the outer moulding. The t moulding would be flush and butted into the outer moulding. The whole thing would be glued up, sanded and finished as a closed corner frame. If there is a pattern on the outer moulding birds mouth joining would be the way to go. Rip extra lengths of the outer moulding roughly in half and for each divider glue two pieces of the ripped moulding with rabbits back to back. Oh, after the ripping, miter the pieces with rabbits to the proper length so that when glued back to back the ends would be arrow shaped and will fit into birds mouth mortises made with chopper cutting about half way through to moulding on the outer frame. It's about as complicated as it sounds. It looks really good though with the pattern seeming to stop in mid run and take a right turn into the divider. We've actually done this a few times with both off the shelf moulding and moulding we've milled. Since the frame in the picture has 5 openings charge for moulding for 5 frames.
 
We've done this type of thing before, mostly in the manner Warren describes. In fact, we have an order in house right now for a 4 opening frame (if it were a true Vermont scene it would be five, but for some reason the artist only created the "normal" four seasons), but it's very small - each opening is only 5 x 7. In this case, the customer wanted thinner dividers so we had to make the moulding thinner before cutting the opposite rabbet to make the "T".

We do all the layout in CAD. It starts getting complicated when you have artwork dimensions, allowances, one rabbet versus two, etc. So we draw it all out to scale and measure key points that we can translate to our TigerStop measuring system. Still, there are two really tricky bits. OK, I guess three.
  1. The points of the divider pieces need to be even (centered). This is one of the GREAT uses of a miter sander. We get them close on the chopper and then sand to fit. We test by making a sample/setup piece with the bird's mouth cut in it, and sand until we get the point even.
  2. The second end of the dividers is even trickier, because you really only get on shot. If you over sand one side or the other (or both!) then you start over. Thankfully these will be the shortest pieces, and we allow for a couple extra when milling to allow for a mistake or three.
  3. Making the bird's mouth the right depth is probably the hardest (for us - because the TigerStop makes the longitudinal position pretty foolproof). Not only is it, too, a go-too-far-and-start-over proposition, but it's going to be the longest piece so you've got more to lose. Also, with the chopper it's pretty tricky to remove really small amounts and you can't sand the bird's mouth like you can the ends of the dividers. We mark the depth and try to cut to within about 1/32" of it, then test fit a divider and see how much further we have to go, and try to take exactly the right amount in one bite.

You can charge whatever you want, but I would caution (especially if/since you've never done this before), to add a good cushion to material costs to ensure that you don't lose money. For your first one, be happy to break even.
 
Create a Post
Back
Top