Hanging System for Small Shadowbox with Narrow Moulding

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MerpsMom

MerpsMom

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
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Jul 30, 1997
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Leawood, Kansas USA
I'm working with an entrepreneur who wants to use a fairly narrow black shadowbox moulding, such as you'd see at HL or Michael's. I usually use small WallBuddies for this type of thing, but is there anything else out there I might not be familiar with? Cost will become an issue but if that's all there is, that will have to be figured in. Help from all your creators?

Cathie
 
Alot of these framers are way more pro than me, and will probably have a much better suggestion, but if you can get a single screw D-ring in, you can always rig up a pulley/suspender system with 4 D-rings and a wire to reduce strain and still have a very easy 1-point means of hanging. That way the wire can act like old man suspenders keeping that bottom rail in line from bowing downward.
IMG_0229[1].JPG
 
That's very nicely old school.😁. You're on top of it. I'd like something simpler as she is going to try to sell these online. Hmmmm... But that's how many successful things got started. Not the internet: entrepreneurial spirit.👍
 
How big are these shadowboxes? The kind of hanging system you can use is dependent on how much weight it has to support.
 
Mary Beth van der Horst said:
Alot of these framers are way more pro than me, and will probably have a much better suggestion, but if you can get a single screw D-ring in, you can always rig up a pulley/suspender system with 4 D-rings and a wire to reduce strain and still have a very easy 1-point means of hanging. That way the wire can act like old man suspenders keeping that bottom rail in line from bowing downward.
View attachment 36290
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Just so long as you don't use screweyes for that setup. Had to re-frame a picture that the moulding got ripped apart from the torque.
 
Mary Beth van der Horst said:
Alot of these framers are way more pro than me, and will probably have a much better suggestion, but if you can get a single screw D-ring in, you can always rig up a pulley/suspender system with 4 D-rings and a wire to reduce strain and still have a very easy 1-point means of hanging. That way the wire can act like old man suspenders keeping that bottom rail in line from bowing downward.
View attachment 36290
Click to expand...
I frequently use this "kite" wiring system with very large/heavy frames, in conjunction with 2 anchor points on the wall.
I've never tried it with small ones, but don't see any reason it wouldn't work.
It is less "tidy" than something like Wall Buddies, but it does do the job.
What about these hangers that jr219 mentioned in a different thread?
jr219 said:
Thanks. That looks like a neat product.

I had come across this when I was researching some things. Seemed like more of a consumer geared product, but a neat idea nevertheless.

beehivepicturehangers.com

Picture Frame Hangers

True picture hanger innovation. Hangs frames with zero measuring. Ideal for multi-frame wall galleries.
beehivepicturehangers.com beehivepicturehangers.com
Click to expand...
 
ugh. entrepreneurs. lots of talk, lots of flash, lots of trash.

If you’re really concerned, fill the rabbet with pasted/glued together, then make a cleat of 8 ply board of 1/8” plywood & screw it on, the other cleat goes on the wall. 8 ply board holds screws; this I know. See:

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Which we hung with cleats (I’m the inconsequential guy with the whiskers in the middle, but I mounted those watercolors onto those SmallCorp panels, so I had a vested interest.)

This:
www.simonandschuster.com

One Good Turn

The Best Tool of the Millennium The seeds of Rybczynski's elegant and illuminating new book were sown by The New York Times, whose editors asked hi...
www.simonandschuster.com www.simonandschuster.com

is a quick read, beautifully written, & teaches much about screwing. Get it from your local library, you don’t need it on your shelf.
 
05, welcome back to the G.
Just FYI, you can edit your comments within 30 minutes after posting.
 
Mary Beth van der Horst said:
Very much understood. I haven't found a good use for screweyes yet...
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I seem to attract clients who want the narrowest frames possible.
I have a variety of sizes for various purposes.
Not my first choice, but sometimes the only thing I have that will work on a >1/2" moulding is screw eyes.
I have also used screw eyes to attach frames together when stacking, or attaching a frame over a stretched canvas (I ran out of offsets :/ ), etc.
They can be used to add a tensioning wire between long top and bottom rails for minimizing outward bowing of thin/flexing mouldings.
 
When I bought out the business in 1979, there was an inventory of every size screweye in the S&S Supplies catalog. I still have most of them.
For skinny frames, Infinity Hangers. I bought 5000 back when there were rumors of Infinity going out of business.

Years ago a Grumbler suggested drilling a 1/8" hole in the frame where you want to attach a wire, shoving the end of the wire in the hole, and inserting a No.4 screw. I never tried it but it has to be better than wiring off of a staple.
 
wpfay said:
When I bought out the business in 1979, there was an inventory of every size screweye in the S&S Supplies catalog. I still have most of them.
For skinny frames, Infinity Hangers. I bought 5000 back when there were rumors of Infinity going out of business.

Years ago a Grumbler suggested drilling a 1/8" hole in the frame where you want to attach a wire, shoving the end of the wire in the hole, and inserting a No.4 screw. I never tried it but it has to be better than wiring off of a staple.
Click to expand...
I'd never heard of Infinity Hangers. I just checked them out at 888 Manufacturing Corp (Sponsor plug! :D)
I like the design of those hangers better than screw eyes, very low profile.
 
Yeah, they're like mini-me D rings.
 
A few years ago, we framed two mirrors in this walnut moulding.. 1/4" across the back, and fairly deep. From the number of holes on the Z-bar, I'm thinking the mirrors were about 20 x 30. Might be a better method, but this is what we did. Mirror in frame. Then, we brushed glue on the frame sides where the back blocks would go and screwed them into the strainer. The blocks touched the glue enough to be held when it dried. After that, added Z-Bar. We had planned for depth, so the end result was frames that hung flush to the wall.

Other framers would skip the back blocks and use a Kreg jig to screw diagonally through the wood strainer into the frame. We have a Kreg jig, but boy howdy does that seem like a trick. Have any of you screwed strainers into such narrow cap frames?

framing attachment resized image for narrow frame june 25, 2017 IMG_0154 (2).jpg
 
Just a suggestion.
Have you ever used mirror mastic to glue the mirror to the strainer?
We frame hundreds and hundreds of very large mirrors, some in floaters which are a challenge.
20" x 30" mirror is not really that large.
I wish the mirrors that we frame were that small.
How about 48" x 117"?
Just did another 10 this week and many were large and are in narrow profile frames.

We build a strainer with cross braces and glue the strainer to the mirror using mirror mastic.
The mastic needs about 2 days to fully set up.
The z-bar is screwed to the strainer for hanging.
Then the frame simply becomes a trim and doesn't carry any of the load of the mirror and doesn't need any special attachments.
The frame can just be stapled or toe nailed to the strainer, it just is trim and doesn't need any bracing or blocks.
 
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Neil's post jogged my memory, and I pulled that old order. For the job pictured in post 17, we used mirror mastic, as well. And I could barely get any out of the applicator, so Dirk had to put it on the mirror. I have no idea how people without super strong arms apply that stuff.
 
Hey, no problem.
You may have gotten a bad cartridge of the mastic.
I am 68 years old and I weigh about 140 pounds and I'm a 14 year cancer survivor from a cancer that should have put me in the ground 10 years ago according to the statistics.:shutup::cool:
I have no problem using the mastic that we get from Home Depot.
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I only have 51 years of framing experience and I still frame and design full time.
I have learned a few things over the years and I try to pass these things on to the other 8 people I work with and to others when I can.
 
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neilframer said:
Hey, no problem.
You may have gotten a bad cartridge of the mastic.
I am 68 years old and I weigh about 140 pounds and I'm a 14 year cancer survivor from a cancer that should have put me in the ground 10 years ago according to the statistics.:shutup::cool:
I have no problem using the mastic that we get from Home Depot.
View attachment 36304

I only have 51 years of framing experience and I still frame and design full time.
I have learned a few things over the years and I try to pass these things on to the other 8 people I work with and to others when I can.
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I am 54 years old, and I weigh about 136 pounds and could only get a few blobs to come out. (Way too slow to get it all on before the mastic set.) Good idea that it might have been a bad tube. It was brand new, but who knows how long it sat at the store before we bought it. I have a feeling that, although you only weigh about 140 pounds and are a 14 year survivor from a cancer that should have put you in the ground 10 years ago according to statistics, you still have a grip of steel. Thank you for sharing what you've learned.
 
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