How to...

clifpa

CGF II, Certified Grumble Framer Level 2
Joined
Sep 18, 2002
Posts
319
Loc
Huntington Beach, CA
... align lots of badges, 48 metal and cloth shoulder badges, from the fire department.

Hi all,

I thought that this would be easy...alas...it's not easy as far as neat alignment goes. I'm trying not to just eye-ball the alignment.
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The shoulder cloth badges have 3-4 pointed pin that punch through the uniform and have a squeeze holder attached from inside. You know the type..wink.

The metal badges seem to all use the long, straight, clasp pin. Oh gosh, there about an inch and maybe 1/2 long and have a little do-hickey type clasp that is turned to in-circle the end of the pin... :confused: again, I'm sure you know what I'm talking about ;)


I'm mounting right to the mat board, I think.

I thought about creating some kind of grid but didn't thinking drawing a grid on the mat looked very professional. Maybe on the backside?

Please help me and your name will be added to the Artistic Touch drawing.


Thanks for being the experts that you are. Maybe one day I will become an expert
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best
 
I use a lot of removable tape to mark layouts on the faces of mats. You can draw lines on it and remove it when you're done with it.

Use the widest you can find to give yourself some latitude.

OR, you can draw your grid on the back and punch small holes where you want the center of each object to be placed. You have to get it right the first time, though.

One of the cool things about a CMC is you can use it to make layout templates even when you're going to surface mount a bunch of objects.

Happiness is cutting a 40-window mat and not feeling bad about throwing it out when you're done with it.
 
Cliffie,

Pardon my subtle sarcasm, but how much like a machine made presentation would you like this to be??

One of the neat things about "custom" framing is that you show, by little variations in your technique, that you have hand crafted the piece and not laid it out in positive grids or placements, in my opinion. I eyeball everything to an even spacing, (as far as my one good eye can fathom "even"), and go from there. I don't mind a bit of uneven-ness in my layouts and only use rulers to ensure that, if all the rows are to be evenly spaced below each other, that they come very close to that tolerance.

Otherwise, I WANT the layout to show that it was hand done and maybe not exactly perfect. Maybe that is the reason why I never tried any paint by numbers art where you fill in the little spaces with the appropriate colors.

You can spend alot of extra time carefully laying out all the badges and medals and then make a little mistake in attaching them and become frustrated at your "failure" to get them all just in the right places. If you start out with the attitude of "artistic license" in your layout, you can accept any little faux pas as simply a sign that you are not the perfect framer and the piece has "character" unto its own.
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:cool:

I hope this takes the pressure off your mind to do the job in a strictly perfect manner, my friend.

Framerguy
 
Cliff, In the past I have use tracing paper to mark out my grids and all, then punch straigh through. When it's all done, just tear away the tracing paper and voila.
Another helper is mounting a nice linen like Quadrile to your board. The pins that need to go through go through, the ones that need to hang on, feed them through the cloth and back out without punching through the mat board.

Ignore Ron's comment about 40 window mat and thow away; I think he's a shill for Wizard.
baer
 
I have had luck using pins in the edge of the board and stringing thread across the surface in a grid pattern. You are probably going to put a layer of foam board behind the mat and the pins can be more easily inserted into the edge of the foam and they can be tensioned a bit more.
Good luck.
 
Has anybody else noticed that, since FramerGuy moved to Florida, his motto has changed from "Perfecshun is my gole" to "What? Me worry?"
 
I'll go with Framerguy on this one. LOOK at the thing, get your general layout by just arranging everything until it looks good. Now that you have done that and it looks good, why do you have to lay it out with tapes and strings?

There is not always a formula for achieving absolute perfection. Sometimes in our efforts to be perfect, it no longer is, it looks forced and un-natural. You are turning a relatively simple project into a nightmare, just lay it out with you eyes, and get the job finished.

John
 
Good information!

I think the first time you do anything you want to gather as much data as possible from the experts. This doesn't mean that you are over-working the problem it's just getting enough technique that you can then apply it to your sense of how something might be done.

Ron, I like using tape over trying to lightly draw the lines on the mat, never comes off.

Baer, I thought of using tracing paper...I tend to rip everything.

Wally, since I do a lot of needle-art using pins this was the technique that I was leaning towards.

John thanks and you (and Tom) are correct. But perfection isn't what I'm looking for, especially from me. But, keeping the stuff in general alignment seems to make sense and my eyes are worse the Tom's...by far.

Tom, with your eye-sight your designing circles and come up with diamonds and the customer loves it so you think that you have just designed a perfect piece...ha, ha, wink with a big smile.

thanks all!
 
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