A Question about fillets

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Framar

Framar

WOW Framer
Joined
Jul 24, 2001
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Loc
Buffalo, New York, USA/Fort Erie, Ontario, Canada
I sincerely hope I am not asking an "Emily Letilla" question here, but how come they don't finish or seal the backs of fillets??? Or, rather, all of the fillets. Some are sealed, some aren't!

If these things are supposed to go into mats (and I have been selling a lot of them lately!) I am ticked off at having to gesso them or cover them with linen tape. There they sit - right on top of the artwork! Or should I cut a mat to put underneath the fillet?

How do you seal them when they are in mats?

Why don't manufacturers seal them?
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i counter mat them and i use the acid free framers tape, sort of plastic feeling, or i use the metalic framers sealing tape, if the manufactuer sealed them it would cost 3 times as much as they do now, besides i charge alot of money to do fillets, it is alot of work and nothing i do is free, i charge for the labor to cut it, fit it and seal it, but the amount is determined by the quantity they are doing........
 
As KW says, we, too, seal our fillets with rabbet lining tape. Then ,for good measure, we cut a 2-ply rag mat to act as a spacer to lift the TAPE off the art, just in case there is any adhesive migration from the edges of the tape. Call me finicky...
 
but how come they don't finish or seal the backs of fillets???
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Probably because the majority of the framers who either don't know or don't care would complain about the extra cost involved.

I really like the look of a second mat under the fillet.
 
I price them just like another moulding, whether they're going inside a mat or inside a frame.

I know that's the right way to do it, 'cause people keep pulling 'em off the wall to use as frames.
 
I also price them out the same as mouldings. My POS program uses the UI method of pricing mouldings and they and the fillets are marked up according to the markup factor assigned to whatever wholesale price I pay for them.

Thanks to Tony and Kassandra Ulchar, I got my grubby little hands on a fillet chopper last year. It has cut my fillet fitting time in half! I never would have suspected that this little toy-looking machine would be such a time saver. I rarely have to recut a fillet now to have it fit right into an opening in a mat. It took a little bit of tweaking but the only way that I have to recut a fillet now is if I make a measuring mistake on the mat opening. It was one of the few used pieces of equipment that I have bought and the very best $75 I have spent in my frameshop!!

Thanks Tony and Kassandra!

Framerguy
 
Originally posted by Framar:
....If these things are supposed to go into mats......I am ticked off at having to gesso them or cover them with linen tape. There they sit - right on top of the artwork! Or should I cut a mat to put underneath the fillet?....
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Framar,

We seldom fit fillets into our designs <u>without</u> the use of an additional mat below the fillet. It's just how we approach the use of this product, and it has never been an issue with customers. Think of it from a design aspect as a "refined triple mat look", where the fillet replaces the middle of three mats utilized.

We'll typically select the bottom mat as a tone variation of the top mat or identical to the top mat, with larger proportions than the fillet. i.e. If the fillet is 3/8 inch wide, then we'll expose another 5/8 to 3/4 inch of the bottom mat.

Of course this eliminates any concern of the fillet touching the artwork.

I'll confirm FramerGuy's approach to marking up fillets using his POS system....same as moulding. A couple of points to note, however...</font>
  • Manually, we always calculated the UI charge on the frame size....we knew this compensated for the "putzy" work involved with fillets. With a POS system, it calculates the UI based on where the fillet is actually placed, inside the mat opening or inside the moulding...It now knows.</font>
  • When moulding vendors supply the widths of fillets to the POS folk, they supply them based on "Pricing Widths". It's possible with some POS programs to actually go in and change these to "Exposed Dimensional Widths". This will enable your POS software to more accurately calculate additional mat exposures.</font>
John
 
Thanks, John, for the additional advice. I have seen fillets marked for width with some really wayout measurements, one of my Southern vendors shows some of their fillets as a 1" width! Heck, the full width of the fillet doesn't approach an inch! And the important measurement is the exposed portion of the fillet as that width is incremental in determining the exposure of the top mat, the actual mat widths in relation to the frame package, and the overall frame package dimensions themselves. In other words, you could have a 1/4" fillet inserted in between 2 mats and, if the width of the fillet exposure isn't accounted for, your top mat could come out 1/2" smaller in width than you expected.

My POS program has a specific spot for placing the fillet into a mat opening. If it goes into the rabbet of the frame, it is treated similar to a stacked frame package and is calculated thus.

FGII
 
I am going to put my ignorance right out there with this "Emily Letilla" question. I never could figure this out when I was on the GAFP committe, so maybe the more enlightened out there can educate me.

FACTS Standard Guide for Maximum Preservation Framing

10.00 Spacing
10.02 All artwork shall be a minimum of 1" away from wood surfaces, including wood frames, fillets, and liners.

"shall" is defined in the document as mandatory.

I responded to the pass on this item with two written comments a)that we mean one inch away from the artwork in ALL directions??? One inch above, below, and on the sides??? Hence, any fillet or liner has to be a minimum of one inch ABOVE the artwork? and b)why do we include fillets or liners in maximum preservation framing at all, since we are introducing elements that we know cause problems in the framing package, regardless of sealing (and there was debate at the time about how effective the various ways of sealing fillets and liners really was).

The reply I got was that "yes, fillets and liners had to be one inch away from the artwork in ALL directions, and they are included in this standard because so many framers use them regardless of the problems that they cause."

Obviously, using another mat under a fillet, or 2 ply, or sealing, doesn't meet the "standard". I have seldom seen framing done with the fillet or liner a full one inch above the artwork.

Soooo, oh wise grumblers, what say ye?
 
"Maximum preservation" - Don't frame at all! I thought that this discussion was about how to use a worthwhile design element in a responsible way. Ellen's procedure using aluminum barrier tape on the exposed wood surface and spacing (not necessarily visibly) with 2-ply rag is the most sensible approach to using a fillet.

Pat
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Sounds like the admonition to put items neither larger than the eraser of a pencil, nor smaller than the point of a football in your ear.
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I would say that including the fillet outside the glass, in some instances, would be acceptable. :rolleyes:

Wouldn't any product that generated acidic gasses inside the frame be against preservation policies? On the other hand, fillets can be made from layers of 4-ply ragboard and hand finished in such a way as to be acceptable as elements in a preservation framing package (Hugh Phibbs; Decorative Preservation Framing, WCAF, Jan 2002).

So the question could be, "why doesn't one of the manufacturers make a series of fillets that conform to GAFP/FACTS minimum preservation guidelines?" The answer, as with most things is "money."
 
I have played with making the fillets out of rag board and doing all that. it is not hard, but it does take time. i went to hugh's class and he told us about that. but it could take a few hours to make the fillet itself, this could be costly for you and the customer. the best protection is in an archival box, but we do what the customer wishes. if it is a valuable piece ($$$$$ or more $$$$$$$)then of course you tell them that this is not the best thing you can do. if they still like the look they can pay for you to make them by hand.
d
 
FACTS Standard Guide for Maximum Preservation Framing

10.00 Spacing
10.02 All artwork shall be a minimum of 1" away from wood surfaces, including wood frames, fillets, and liners.

"shall" is defined in the document as mandatory.

WOW!! And to think that the Louvre has been doing it wrong all these years.
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Guess they better order about a billion feet of 1" FACT approved spacer for the Mona Lisa and friends.
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Those paintings are gonna sure look funny.
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baer
 
Originally posted by Baer Charlton:
FACTS Standard Guide for Maximum Preservation Framing

10.00 Spacing
10.02 All artwork shall be a minimum of 1" away from wood surfaces, including wood frames, fillets, and liners.

"shall" is defined in the document as mandatory.

WOW!! And to think that the Louvre has been doing it wrong all these years.
help.gif
Guess they better order about a billion feet of 1" FACT approved spacer for the Mona Lisa and friends.
kaffeetrinker_2.gif


Those paintings are gonna sure look funny.
faintthud.gif

smileyshot22.gif

baer
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10.03 Exceptions to 10.02 shall be for : (a) wood frames when the entire rabbet area is lined with an impermeable barrier such as glass or metal; and (b) strainers/stretcher bars completely covered in the same manner


Bear

Perhaps you should read the whole of FACTS Standard…..before you start picking holes in it…….we could all be divisive if we wished by picking sections of the standard and just applying little bits of it…….

The FACT standards are supposed to be studied and used in there entirety…. you can see them here www.artfacts.com

Oh and seeing as you appear to be such a well traveled chap perhaps you should inform the readers here about the damage that has been done to art in museums around Europe (I’m sure out of all those thousands of photos that you have taken you have some of damaged art in that library of yours, a few from the Louvre displaying damage would be most appropriate) and the rest of the World for that matter, I sure with the resources you appear to display that you have taken the opportunity on you travels to study the damage done to artwork by unsuitable framing by today’s standards and knowledgeable base otherwise your understanding of framing a various locations could be out of balance and this would include framing at the Louvre…...

With a little research I think you would find that the methodology they are now using now a days at the Louvre would be very close if not bang on with what FACTS are suggesting……
 
The operative word here is "Maximum". If someone brings in a Remington drawing or a Miro print, we don't use fillets in the package. Period. But if it is a print of a Remington drawing, or a reproduction of a Miro print, why, fillet away! That's why they come to us; because we know the difference. PS: Kin***** always get fillets.
 
Ellen nailed it. So did Pat when he said that, for maximum preservation, don't frame it at all.

The term "maximum preservation" has been hotly debated here, on HH, and by various FACTS committees. Two things we can perhaps agree on:

1) Maximum preservation framing will not include fillets.

2) The FACTS standards for maximum preservation were never intended to be apply to the majority of the framing we do. (See the first line of Ellen's signature.)
 
Not to beat a dead horse, but referring to Ellen's first post and the exceptions alluded to by Dermot, I believe that fillets can be used in a way that meets FACTS standards for maximum conservation framing, as can wood frames. I do agree that Ron is correct in his point #1 if the all of the correct steps are not taken.

Pat :D
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Off-gas this - give me a break

Plenty of framed quality art on paper has survived longer than any of us will in worse conditions.

In my UnSeal saturated opinion, fillets can certainly be responsibly used in fine-art packages, but then who the **** is Less?

I've always followed Larson's recommended markup for fillets - chop price markup based on UI of the frame.

This means these little guys are pricey. I believe they should be, due to the amount of work to properly install them. They are much more labor and material intensive than frames.

Less now joins all of his fillets before installation with glue and Casseses' v-nails.
 
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