Help I don't like brads!!! how to remove?

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Julie Walsh

Julie Walsh

MGF, Master Grumble Framer
In Memorium
Rest In Peace

Gone but not forgotten
Joined
May 30, 2007
Posts
988
Loc
Toronto, Canada
Have some very large stretched canvas paintings that I need to remove from their existing frames and put into new ones. The frame has been attached with brads, shot at an angle and with such force you can even see it!!! The frame is really tight too, which makes it impossible to get snips in between.

I've use my dremel cutter only in the areas where there is room, but can't continue due to it being so tight.

What else should I try??
 
Sometimes I cut away some of the wood on the back of the stretcher to access the brad head. If the frame isn't being put back on, I take it off by breaking the corners and prying it of the stretcher.
 
That's what I ended up doing....like coring an apple! I had to remove staples from the painting to get at them. There must be a better way and also, why are brads still being used? I always attach with offsets, or multi-points/screw depending on the frame.
 
Driving nails at angles into the back of the frame and the stretcher bars never was an acceptable method of fitting canvas art - for exactly the reasons you have explained.
 
Jim Miller said:
Driving nails at angles into the back of the frame and the stretcher bars never was an acceptable method of fitting canvas art - for exactly the reasons you have explained.
Click to expand...


Gee, Okay, I have my soda and my popcorn.... explain what was the acceptable method way back in the dark ages of
pre-1980....


During WWII the Germans ran into the same frustration you're having Julie....
they came up with a very fast solution... not elegant, but fast......

it was so powerful a solution, the US government has adopted the same technique
that they are using it even today in the middle east. . . but slightly adapted.....

zcustomxg4.jpg
 
As long as the frame is being replaced, sometimes you've just gotta get out the BIG hammer and a chisel and pry that sucker out of there.:shutup: (carefully)
I like whenever I get to use a BIG hammer and a chisel.:cool:
 
If you can't get the Dremel grinder in, a big screwdriver and a pair of long-nosey pliers are the weapon of choice. :popc:

Tips:

Don't let the screwdriver slip and perforate the canvas.
Don't let the screwdriver slip and impale your hand or other essential bodily parts.
 
Back in the early 20thC.... there was a tool made for retracting the nails.
It was even manufactured by or for CR Lawrence company. (Name was
cast into the body of the main handle.

Now I just have to remember where I stuck all of the unneeded tools
of unacceptable practices.

I also have a set of side nipper looking dykes that look like they were
sired by a set of needle-nosed pliers. The two handles have bulbous
ends that you can hit with a mallet - driving the points into the wood
around the nail head.

I wonder what those two tools were really made for?
 
Julie Walsh said:
Have some very large stretched canvas paintings that I need to remove from their existing frames and put into new ones. The frame has been attached with brads, shot at an angle and with such force you can even see it!!! The frame is really tight too, which makes it impossible to get snips in between.

I've use my dremel cutter only in the areas where there is room, but can't continue due to it being so tight.

What else should I try??
Click to expand...

Back in my woodworking days where I would have to remove a nail from say a chair stretcher, I would take a very narrow ( 1/8 inch) spline chisel, and notch a groove on either side of the nail forming a "v". I would then take a pair of needle nose pliers and grab as much as the nail as possible. I would then take a second (vice grip) needle nose pliers and clamped to the first. Some type of protective piece of wood was put down, and then I would rotate the vice grip pulling the nail out.

Nowadays, Rockler has this handy little gadget: http://www.rockler.com/product.cfm?page=2354&site=ROCKLER that eliminates having to chisel a "v" and makes for a cleaner finished appearance. Basically one pair of needle nose pliers might do it by itself, but if not, clamp on a second vise grip type to the first, and then rotate that as a unit, kind of like a claw on a hammer. Works like a champ.

Troy
 
Don't let the screwdriver slip and impale your hand or other essential bodily parts.[/QUOTE]

I don't have any body parts I consider nonessential.

Jeff K
 
If I can't force the nail up by reaching with needle nose pliers between the frame and the stretcher, I just use a pair of dykes and push into the wood by the nail, grab hold and pull it out. It does cause a small amount of damage to the stretcher, but nothing major.
 
Jim Miller said:
Mending plates, bent to fit and screwed to the frame's back, but not to the stretcher. Still a method recommended by CCI.
Click to expand...

I think in all of the places I have worked, (general retail to conservation), and all of the museum
back rooms and workshops I have been graced to work in.... I have seen brass mending plates
and screws used about four times. Nails through the stretchers into the frame..... all of the time.
[remember - commercially viable screws aren't common prier to the 1850s. But square nails
pre-date art in a frame by a few centuries.]

I have been consolidating my files and couldn't find the side image of the large Titan painting
in the North Upper floor of the Louvre, where the square nail is clearly securing the stretcher bar,
through the canvas into the frame. (Which wasn't why I was taking the photo... it was for the
sliding dove-tails that secured the miter that after a few centuries still wasn't cracking open.)

More commonly, I have seen this treatment, where the wall of the frame was built-up.
One would think they would also build up around the rabbet.... and nail sideways like a framing
point... but, sadly, I have seen the build-up to block view of the working behind the frame,
and then nails driven through stretchers.

Picture_1387.jpg


The dun colored build-up is to make a "prettier" side view. Please also note that the painting/frame
is utilizing no bumpers or wire to let air behind.....
This Bearstat is in room 241 of the Louvre.
And if I remember right, the frame on it's left - - is hung only on a single hook/nail.

This has always been the war between the Ivory Tower, and Reality.

In my other place that lost my respect; Italy; if the Uffizi can't care enough about the treasures
to close the windows against the rotting putride methane gasses rising from the sewage in the
river, why would they worry about driving a nail through the canvas?
 
I remember seeing a great method in a DIY framing article. :D Make the frame nice and snug around the canvas. Then, when it's in the frame bang in the stretcher keys until it's jammed in tight and won't drop out.



Why didn't I think of that. it's soooooooo simple. :shrug:

(sorry. there wasn't a font color green enough)
 
Baer Charlton said:
This has always been the war between the Ivory Tower, and Reality.
Click to expand...

This is really where the rubber hits the road.
Sometimes I wonder why we try to frame anything.
Everything needs to be placed in a controlled environment, in a dark closet behind bulletproof glass and in a humidity controlled drawer.:icon11:

About 90% of what we frame is just "stuff".
Some people don't even want to spend a few extra dollars for CC glass, never mind the other issues.
Most of us really try to do the best we can with what we are given and it's still a h#ll of a lot better than what was done even just a few years ago.
Often I even go beyond what the client was willing to pay for just to please myself and try to do the "right thing".:icon9:
 
neilframer said:
Everything needs to be placed in a controlled environment, in a dark closet behind bulletproof glass and in a humidity controlled drawer.:icon11:
Click to expand...
There's a world of difference between what is described here as "ivory tower" framing, and the practice of fitting a canvas by driving nails through the frame, which is among the most destructive ways to do the job.

It seems odd that professional framers would excuse such an unprofessional framing practice.
 
That's a nice way to put it Neil.

I've just resorted to surrender to the philosophy that 90%
of what we frame today is the next generation's garage
sale fodder.
 
Just because something has been commonly done for years, does not mean that it is right. This is why we go to conventions, and study the effects on artwork, so we can learn. Nails through the stretcher bars keep the canvas from expanding and contracting, which will affect the canvas and the painting. We know this, because we are in the 21st century, and have lots of advances.

What we see in many museums is what the artist did. We already know that many artists don't get educated about the frames. (Ok, way back when, the artist was the framer as well... but they also used blood to make cardboard... so, my point is made.)

Some museums want the art to be displayed the way it way made, some museums want to protect the art, and try to advance the framing and substrate without harming the art.

We as framers must continue to learn from the mistakes of the past, and try to protect the artwork of the future. We must aspire to that "Ivory Tower", and hope that the Tower has a while Castle behind it.
 
When confronted with a buried pigeon nail holding a canvas to a frame, I used to dig on either side of the head with my wire cutters until I could make a purchase onto it and then using a canvas key as a fulcrum, I used the cutters to ease the brad out of the stretcher bar. That worked 99% of the time. For you younguns, there was an old-time tool called a nail puller which was used to pull the nail into the stretcher bar without banging it in. I still have my grandfather's somewhere around here.
 
I'll hold up my hand and say that I used to put canvases into frames using just this method. Why? Because that is the way that I was taught by the framer I apprenticed under in the late '70s.

Then the boss sent me to the PPFA convention in Baltimore, and my eyes were opened. We joined PPFA, I started learning, and plan never to stop. Planning to learn more in Las Vegas in January.
 
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