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Emibub

Emibub

PFG, Picture Framing God
Joined
Nov 2, 2001
Posts
9,246
Loc
Centennial, CO, USA
I am determined to finally make my backroom workable. You guys have no idea the conditions I am working under. I have never been the most organized of framers, but this is "extreme" conditions. Since my business seems to have temporarily come to a halt last week I have nothing to frame this week. Time to gut the back room and make it functional.

One of the shops I worked in had a flat file to store art in. One other had a cardboard flat file for art storage and a divider thing for rolled art. I can't seem to find any of these supply companies who carry flat files. Anybody know of a source? I'm not looking to spend a lot of money so I would prefer the cardboard one. Either that or has anybody made one?

I frame in stages usually. I have plastic sleeves for storage when the order comes in. What I need is something with layers that I could use to house prepped art that has already been glassed waiting for a frame. I have nowhere in my shop to do this. I have one junk/collection table that I figure I can put a flat file on, and since it is on layers as I prep art it could go from the sleeve to the flat file. I need to frame this way.(in stages)I used to frame one piece from beginning to end. When I went to Michael's I had to learn assembly line framing and it is the way to go. So, it has to be able to go to point A, to point B, etc. Right now I have Point A. Even though I am an assembly line of one I still need to put the art through these various stages.(could possibly be an idiot savant thing)(no offense to idiot savants)So any ideas on flat files or possibly constructing something with layers would be helpful. If I don't get this back room "suitable for framing" I will go starkers!
 
Originally posted by emibub:
If I don't get this back room "suitable for framing" I will go starkers!
Click to expand...
Royall, take comfort in the fact that it'll be a short trip, much like mine!

Seriously, though, go to www.dataprint.com or call 1-800-227-6191. They have what you're looking for, I believe, in their latest catalog, on page 26 and 27.
We use the Safeco tacking trays, item #7130099, catalog #4899.
They ain't exactly cheap, but not TOO much. Definitely WAY more sturdy than cardboard! Each tray can hold up to 40 pounds, and they are stackable up to 5 feet.

(Comma removed)

[ 03-10-2003, 08:07 AM: Message edited by: Ron_Eggers ]
 
Another Option would be to contact a drafting supply house -- Alvin makes all types of flat files for drafting which should be more than adequate.


Jason.
 
You might look for office supply houses that have
old metal map file drawers. The ideal would be
new drawers with powder coat finish, but they would be quite expensive. Old drawers that had
a solvent applied finish should have finished with
most of their gaseous emissions and should be
resonalbly cheap.

Hugh
 
Kathy - I have limited space (and limited budget!)but found that we created some very useful and inexpensive flat files with cheap (!) plastic shelving units from one of the big box places. The ones I used just happen to be white and I cut the spacer tubes to make the shelves closer together - so I have about 6-8" between... I also have this sitting on the top of my vertical file and have 5 shelves. In order to do this I used two sets and put one customized shelving unit at the front and one at the back and cut foamcore to create the shelves - it's as sturdy as I need it to house artwork, work in progress and the five shelves - work really well for a daily "due" system - which gets put to the side when I am not as busy (like now!).... It certainly is nothing fancy, but does the job until I get more space, work and the $$ will follow!!

Good luck.

Roz
 
One thing I have been thinking about investigating is more of a "rack" system.
When we have a bunch of things to do the horizontal areas get all filled fast.
I have seen big racks in bakeries and hospitals with trays that may.... possibly work for a "holding" area for the framing in progress.

With small work areas you need to go vertical.
Look for something out of our industry maybe in a "used" bakery or restuarant supply place .
The Denver area should have many places to look.
 
Wow! Lots of responses. It is kind of nice, you pose a question before you go to sleep and you wake up and find lots of ideas. Kind of like the "tooth fairy" or setting a dishwasher?

I was looking in the framing industry sites for these, it never occurred to me that a printer/office supply/art supply place would have these. I combed through several PFM's looking.


So now I have many options to consider. Roz, I am heading to a Home Depot for a visual aid, it could work. Rick, I happen to know a cabinet maker so he may have a solution. Yes vertical is the only way I have left to go. My goal this week is to have a place for everything so my one and only workbench will be free of all things except the task at hand.(yeah right)I only have one extra table and it is piled high and unusable. My idea is to put in the flat files or trays and then I can still use the top of said file to load up with all the other junk I don't seem to know what to do with, but i can still use the space in between. Thanks for the ideas, guys.
 
Kathy,
If you don't need anything "fancy" I'd recommend vertical storage bins under you work table. I built the ones in my workshop out of 1/2" B/C plywood. The table top is 4' x 8' 3/4" A/C plywood. Vertical sections are spaced about 8" apart. The height is, I think, 34" so that there is plenty of room to fit folders of your choice. 32" x 40" ones should handle almost everything that you get in. Think of the whole dsign looking like this - IIIIIIIIII (with out any spaces of course.) Mine actually has about 5 - 8" spaces and a couple of 24" spaces because of the height you can fit whole cases of foamcore or matbaord easily under the table as well. Good Luck!
 
You know Curlie I have some vertical space under my work bench. The lady before me had such a weird table when I got here, but I actually got a nice one from Michael's that has vertical dividers which holds foamcore and glass. The other table I have, people who moved my wall added this table with leftover materials. I was thrilled to get the space. They even put in vertical dividers and thought it could be for matboard. The goofballs only gave me 30" vertical space though. :mad: One of them is even a framer who is aware of 32 x 40 sizes too. :confused: I appreciated the table, it was a surprise they added it on but I can't use it for anything other than scrap matboard. So I guess my other option is to rebuild the table with 32 inch clearance. In fact rebuilding the table and adding the flat file also would be the most ideal. If wishes were fishes...........
 
Kathy, we prep all the framing in the same manner that you do and store it all in vertical bins under the work tables while waiting for any frames to arrive.

However, we dust-seal (almost) everything (remember that discussion??) and that way it all stores quite nicely in that fashion. Some small items can be dust-sealed and then slid right back into the plastic sleeve.

Giving that method a try would surely be a lot less expensive than a new storage system!

whaddaya think?

edie

(note to Kathy: I am working on a LOOOOOOOOOOONG email to you...!)
 
Originally posted by emibub:
So I guess my other option is to rebuild the table with 32 inch clearance.
Click to expand...
Or add 2) 2x4 blocks under each leg, making a 4x4 (or if it's "finished" wood it is about 3x3.)

Betty
 
Betty,

I think that what she is talking about is the inside dimension between the floor of the vertical bins and the ceiling of the vertical bins. I don't think making longer legs wouldn't help the bin dimensions much.

Kathy,

I built my flat file out of a blueprint storage cabinet similar to the map files and drafting files. I got my drawers out of a cabinet that I located from the college where I taught. They bought new files and stored all the old ones in an unused building for a future auction sale. I offered them $5 for the file cabinet, which had 12 drawers in it and threw away the metal cabinet. I took the drawers and drawer slides which were high quality and built a birch plywood box for them. I removed the drawer pulls and faced each drawer with a 1/2" piece of clear birch to match the cabinet and stained and finished it in polyurethane. The plywood cost me about $60.00 for single face birch and the rest I made myself. You can face the exposed edges of the plywood with thin strips of birch to give it a finished solid look.

If you have access to a good cabinet maker, you could possibly swing a deal on some free framing in exchange for him building you a flat file cabinet once you located some drawers. I would check the drafting dept. at your local community college to see if they may have something similar to what I found sitting around. You may luck out and find just what you need for little or nothing.

Side note, 2 of the drawers were damaged on the file that I got so I didn't have to offer much for it. I threw those 2 drawers out and used the 10 good ones. I just looked in one of my catalogs and a low priced flat file runs over $400.00 so doing a little leg work in trying to find a set of drawers out of a salvaged cabinet would pay off in the end result. (Another thought, check any salvage stores in the Denver area to see if they might have something like you need.)

If you are really cramped for space, you could remove the top of that table you mentioned, put 3" longer (higher) dividers in for the vertical bins and buy some of these display envelopes that they sell for print racks to store your paper items in. (I had some problem visualizing just how you would stand large prints and posters up in a vertical rack until this came to my feeble mind.) Then, if you got a flat file later in your shop development, you could store matboard/foamcore in the vertical file.

Framerguy
 
Yeah Betty, Tom described the dilemma just right. The table is built on a platform which is about 4 inches off the floor. Maybe lifting the tabletop off and raising it could work. That is way out of my thought processes, I'll have someone look into it. If I did that I could store prepped art in vertical bins. I used to glass 'em up to 24x36 and store in a sleeve in the old days. I didn't dust seal them like Edie does so it was very hard on the sleeves.

I am so cramped for space here. I have exactly 260 sq feet to work in. Believe it or not I added 100 sq feet of that. I had a wall moved 10 feet into the salesfloor because there was no way I could work in that tiny area. I have added shelving around the perimeter and pegboard wherever I could. If I hadn't gotten that workbench from Michael's I still wouldn't have anyplace to put foamcore or glass. The way the workbench was configured I couldn't get anything bigger than 22x28 under it. What a nimrod the previous owner was and is. I've added a floor saw which needs clearance along one wall to accomodate length. One whole wall houses incoming length and leftovers. The other big wall is all shelves and I very naively brought all my art supplies from home foolishly thinking I would have all this time to work on my projects and become fabulously popular as a pseudo artist. Haven't looked at or touched any of it in over a year. It sure looks inspiring, like it might be a creative entity, but it is all for show.

So, the only place I have to expand is this one lone table...........and my sanity or lack there of is tied to the outcome of this little endeavor.
 
The salvage store is great. Our two work tables came from a local college years ago, old drafting tables. Two of our flat files came from gov. surplus auction which includes federal, state city and schools.
 
My brother has worked out a cool solution. He ruminates on this stuff a lot. I had given him some slatwall pieces when I took them down from here. He was thinking he would build a 48x40 box and put the slats on the inside in a horizontal fashion. Then he will cut some particle board to fit which will just slide in holding in place with the grooves between the slats. Best part is it won't cost me a dime. He is using found materials. In fact he has just completed some work on a home and the homeowner had lots of leftover wood and 2x4's, so he claimed them and say's he has enough to build me the design counter I have wanted. Things are looking up here at Out on a Whim. Except for sales, those seem to have all but stopped the past couple of weeks.
 
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