frame clips

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adjframes

True Grumbler
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I was in Philadelphia last weekend and went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was a lot of fun. While there, I noticed a couple of pieces framed with these funny clips. I had been thinking about exactly this for a piece I want to frame. It's a photo that goes right up to the edge of the paper, so I'd rather not cover it up with a spacer or a mat. Anybody seen/used these before? Have a source to get them?


frameclips4.jpg
frameclips3.jpg
 
This type of frame design is typically unsafe and difficult to execute, even though it appears simple.
I would only ever do a "clip" frame using acrylic, not glass.
You would also have to deal with the edges, ie. make sure it's smooth, lies flat and straight.
How about floating the photo?
 
...and do remember that art in museums is framed only while on display. Mostly it lives unframed in storage...
 
That looks like a crude assembly - something like a clip-frame with a home-made wooden box on the back. If you really want to build a similar assembly, you could make your own clips using the same spring steel we use for formed rod mounts. Just form the clips into a "U" shape to fit, and press them into holes drilled into the sides of the frame.

Direct Contact Overlay framing using acrylic would serve the same purpose and would look a lot better. It would also enclose the sides of the item, rather than leaving them open to ruinous exposure.
 
There must be 1000s of these clips lying about in framing workshops. They would all have come off clipframes where the glass has broken. It's cheaper to buy a new complete clipframe than replace the glass. :icon11:
 
I should have mentioned, I'm planning on using optium for the glazing, so wont have to worry about scratches/breakage.

I've seen plenty of cheapo frame clips before, but these looked pretty solid, just wondering if anybody knew of these kicking around.

They were on a Joseph Cornell piece if I remember correctly, looked like it had been there for quite a while. Seemed like an interesting presentation, but obviously not entirely enclosed and this method has it's downsides.
 
In Australia back in the late eighties we could buy German made Randolph clip frames in all the "standard" sizes and, like anything cheap, for a while artists were all over them, purely for the minimalist look, of course:icon11:. The Randolphs had quite solid backhangers and were backed with fairIy rigid masonite but being unsealed at the edges were always a worry. I was never too keen on them and would usually discount an aluminium frame rather than fiddle with making a clip frame but some framers were turning them out up to 1000mm x 700mm which to my way of thinking is stupidly dangerous.

Anyway, it wasn't long before K-Mart and Woolworths hopped onto the bandwaggon with a range of cheap and crummy clip frames at half the Randolph price with the usual scratchy glass and bowed m.d.f. backing but, hey, they were cheap and that pretty well killed it off so far as professional framers were concerned.

I haven't seen or made one for years now.
 
If you simply must have that look, then these gizmos are safer than springy clips.

15012-PCP.jpg


You do need a thick backboard to screw them into, but that isn't altogether a bad thing.
 
Clip frame

That looks like an one Kulicke frame and it may have routed masonite on the back and springs to keep tension on the clips.




Hugh
 
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