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Terry Hart cpf

Terry Hart cpf

SGF, Supreme Grumble Framer
Joined
Sep 23, 2003
Posts
2,087
Loc
Excelsior, MN
There's a thread up on the joys of creating & finishing your own mouldings. While it can be very enjoyable & rewarding & a big bonus to your customers to be able to offer it can be way time consuming so I'm curious. How much time have you spent on an order? I'm thinking creating & finishing moulding although it doesn't have to be exclusive to that. & I'm talking for an actual client, not one of these labors of love. I think my record for a single frame is probably 125 hours. This was back in '99. A Hudson River style frame about 6" wide for a painting maybe 36"x48". It took 5 profiles to create, all compo ornamentation, water gilded. A lot of time on one piece.
 
247 hours.... then I sent it to Laura to sculpt and gold the dragon parts....
so lets round it up to 250

3,200 hand cut scales, then laid and hammered into shape.

ScaleFramewithChangE.jpg


but more usual.... 63 hours hand-shaping the moulding then joining
with pegged-sliding dove tails, pinned and cross-pinned, and a bow-tie
dutchman.

E18cEnglishRectoryTapistry.jpg


the incised water leaf was the easy fast part.
 
Baer Charlton said:
247 hours.... then I sent it to Laura to sculpt and gold the dragon parts....
so lets round it up to 250 ... 3,200 hand cut scales, then laid and hammered into shape.
Click to expand...

Whoa....that's almost 6 1/2 - 40 hour weeks, full time. I'm afraid I would lose interest after 6 1/2 hours or 20 hand cut scales.

...off to place my chop order! :D
 
The way I do it is designed to be not-too-labor-intensive. :p There is a principle called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Basically, there is a point where extra time spent does not equate with a corresponding extra value. Also, frame that you spend 50 hrs on doesn't necessarily look 10 times better than one you spent 5 hrs on. ;)
There is also the 'Goldilocks' principle. Not too much - not too little - but just right. :thumbsup:
That's not a dig at the herculean efforts of the previous posters. But if you spent 100hrs on a frame and were very pleased with the result, would you like to do another exactly the same? :help: (Boiling your cabbages twice as my Mother would say....) I have spent far too much time on some frames, but learned something valuable in the process. I can write that off as R&D.
A lot of the time involved is waiting for paint to dry. Last week I did 12 smallish hffs. Each had two components. Outer frame and liner. The liners were all the same moulding and finish. Outers varied in size, but all had the same finish. So when I got a particular stage done on the last one, the first one was dry and ready for the next. I took most of the week doing them, but the actual time spent (or not spent) can be optimised by setting your stall out to maximise efficiency.
 
I do things in stages always working on one or more projects at a time. The "refinish" work on already finished moulding should not take me longer than 20 minutes to complete unless I'm adding texture..but then that's what hair dryers and fans are for. I really like it when the temp outside is in the high 90's or more...things dry soooo fast.
 
Show off!!!

That dragon frame is absolutely amazing!!!




Baer Charlton said:
247 hours.... then I sent it to Laura to sculpt and gold the dragon parts....
so lets round it up to 250

3,200 hand cut scales, then laid and hammered into shape.

ScaleFramewithChangE.jpg


but more usual.... 63 hours hand-shaping the moulding then joining
with pegged-sliding dove tails, pinned and cross-pinned, and a bow-tie
dutchman.

E18cEnglishRectoryTapistry.jpg


the incised water leaf was the easy fast part.
Click to expand...
 
Time....I never keep track of it...ever! I do what it takes to get what I want results wise. Crazy? Probably,but I'm not camped out under a bridge yet. L
 
I got to see the dragon first hand. It looks great in the pic but as usual, the pic doesn't do it justice. Really amazing work.
 
prospero said:
The way I do it is designed to be not-too-labor-intensive. :p There is a principle called the Law of Diminishing Returns. Basically, there is a point where extra time spent does not equate with a corresponding extra value.
Click to expand...

Yes indeed. Although I don't think it's possible to compete with prefinished moulding on cost it is possible to finish or modify & still keep it within reason. I have a job right now with a pretty good sized prefinished frame that I will modify by simply adding a coat of shellac to the inner portion. That's some nice value added for a few minutes work. It's good to know what you can do with the simplest of methods.

prospero said:
Last week I did 12 smallish hffs. Each had two components. Outer frame and liner. The liners were all the same moulding and finish. Outers varied in size, but all had the same finish. So when I got a particular stage done on the last one, the first one was dry and ready for the next. I took most of the week doing them, but the actual time spent (or not spent) can be optimised by setting your stall out to maximise efficiency.
Click to expand...
So it sounds like you spent what? 2-2 1/2 hrs per frame? How do you arrive at pricing? Did you find it hard at first to correctly judge in advance how much time you'll need for a project? Or do you even quote in advance on a job like that? Are you working from samples of work you've done before?
 
OK, to be completely honest about the dragon frame.....
about 200 hours were spent with my right shoulder strapped
into a ice pack that is umbilical tubed to a machine with ice in it.
30 minutes on - - 30 off, repeat, repeat, repeat . . . the doc
said... do it all day if you can....
The challenge was that very soon, I ran out of stupid recorded TV
shows...... I even took to scanning the 2am-6am movies to record.....
(and you know I'm desperate when I recorded The Way We Were....
at least it wasn't Lentil)

So . . with weeks of stupid TV, and two free hands..... and a pair
of Ludden-Gist shears (they can cut quarters in half). . . I turned
$150 worth of Carpathian Elm veneer sheets into little tiny scales
about 1" x 1/2-3/4" wide. The veneer gluing and hammering into
shape only took about 12-16 hours.

I have about 1,300 cut for the next one so far.... I will need about 4,500
for it. 18x30... for a mirror....
Then, I think I want to do one in leather scales..... something to do with
those three old shot-up hides I have had laying around since we did "Little
Big Man"...... gotta use up the scrap.
 
If you charged $60.00 an hour.
So you have about $12,000-$12,900 in labor alone?


Was this a below min. wage labor job?

[green] If so you can come to Ohio and work any day....you can work for room and board + $5.00 a frame. I will put you up with the migrant workers. [/green]
 
Baer Charlton said:
OK, to be completely honest about the dragon frame.....
about 200 hours were spent with my right shoulder strapped
into a ice pack that is umbilical tubed to a machine with ice in it.
30 minutes on - - 30 off, repeat, repeat, repeat . . . the doc
said... do it all day if you can....
Click to expand...

I remember that, Baer! So, do you get hazard pay or time and a half?
I remember (barely) mounting a leather jacket in a shadow box when I was at week 6 of radiation and chemo almost 6 years ago.
My former boss and her husband, who is a doctor, had put 2 leather chairs nose to nose from her office upstairs down in the frame shop so I could flop down on them after coming back from my daily treatment and get myself together for a while to do some framing.
Hey, we've gotta do what we've gotta do.
I wouldn't change a thing in that process. You just get a little stronger.
When Clint Eastwood (Dirty Harry) said in the movie "Magnum Force" that " A man's gotta know his limitations" I always took that to mean keep pushing those limitations until there is a push back. Then you know your limits (and you can push a little more the next time). :party:
 
Or as my injury/work ethic states: You still got all your fingers... Now, wipe the blood on the back of your shirt,and keep going.... No, I won't explain just now... L
 
Terry Hart cpf said:
So it sounds like you spent what? 2-2 1/2 hrs per frame? How do you arrive at pricing? Did you find it hard at first to correctly judge in advance how much time you'll need for a project? Or do you even quote in advance on a job like that? Are you working from samples of work you've done before?
Click to expand...

I can pretty much tell the time involved. I've done those particular frames before so I have all the mixtures and processes worked out.
There was less than an hour spent actually working on each frame. Including joining and assembly.
The liners were new stock, but the outers were either made out of odd bits or stuff I got at the right price. :p
Some frames are more complex. They can have very tricky colors or parts that have to be masked off.
Sometimes people want a particular 'look'. I did a couple a while ago which were replicas of a frame from an auction catalogue. The original had lots of cracks and worn parts. 'Distressed' as they say in the trade.:p The end result turned out surprisingly good. Didn't take very long and was great fun to boot. I enjoy attacking frames with sharp implements. :popc:
One of my fav finishes is a dark basecoat (usually murky green/brown), followed by a coat of gold dabbed on in a haphazard fashion. When that's dry, I paint the whole thing white and wipe off while it's wet. When dry, I go over it quite agressively with steel wool and wax. Most of the gold disappears, but it doesn't work quite the same without it. It's quick to do. No fiddly details, just a big brush. Apart from a quick sanding of the bare wood, I don't fill the grain to make it super-smooth. In fact it works better on very open-pore wood. Doesn't sound very promising, but it looks great on a lot of modern oils in the 'impressionist' style. Very arty.:icon11:
 
prospero said:
. Last week I did 12 smallish hffs. ... I took most of the week doing them...
Click to expand...



prospero said:
I can pretty much tell the time involved. I've done those particular frames before so I have all the mixtures and processes worked out.
There was less than an hour spent actually working on each frame. Including joining and assembly.
Click to expand...

Gotta find me out about those 12 hr work weeks.
thumbsup.gif
 
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