KEEPING MATBOARD CORNERS IN ORDER

Jason

CGF, Certified Grumble Framer
Joined
Dec 3, 2004
Posts
198
Loc
Iowa
I searched through the archives and could not find anything on this. Are there any good methods for keeping matcboard corner samples in order once you have them the way you want them on your rack? I have seen some shops have a black marker line on the edge of them. Does this assist with lining them back up in order? Any thoughts appreciated. Thanks.
 
Thanks Sherry! You are right --- a hard one to search for and find!
 
We used to try to do that, but found that we were missing opportunities to 'discover' that pinky greeny yellowy greyish one that just MADE the look. So we haul them all out for a first run-through and to H--- with order. Chaos reigns!
 
we color edges by color family and they are in order that way, but not by number
 
I know Bainbridge uses their "color-wheel" to sort their mats. Does Crescent have a similar method? Do you intermix the brands? (We do)

I like Elaine's method - I've seen it before - Just keep forgeting to do it!
 
A line on the side for each color family, then a line along the bottom edge for which rack it goes into!

When resorting I take the mats with the highest lines and put them to the front of the rack. As I get lower and lower with the unsorted mats I pull the whole mess toward me. two or three runs through and the mats are back in order! Takes less than 1/2 an hour to resort, took 5 days to sort!
 
I've intended to 'organize' my mat corner samples for 3 years now but have never attacked it for the very reason Ellen states. I LOVE those 'somewhere in the middle' shades that just pull the entire package together in unique fashion! Thus......with every design, out comes a boat-load of mat corner samples!! And back they go...."reasonably orderless".

Re: Bainbridges "color wheel index"....I can't always see the same colors they do, especially in the yellow and yellow/orange category. We have upgraded lighting and that may be part of the problem. I sort them according to how I see it, but again, they are sorted in very general categories.
 
Mine are sorted by company and that is all. I have 3 different companies on the counter,

One is Larson Juhl, one is Cresent and the other is Tru Vue.

I don't have bandbridge out because they have not sent me a 4" sample set yet.

They are easy to sort by company because the tops are different.

We don't sort by color because of what was mentioned ealier.

I do dream of a large 2 tier mat display though.

These take so much space.

Maybe one day,

Jennifer
 
Jennifer,

FYI:
If you do get a 2 tier mat display, be certain that you have good lighting for the bottom tier. When I first bought ours, I had to 'unstack' it because the top rack shadowed the bottom rack. Now that I need the counter space for Integrated Framer, I've restacked it and must go shopping for a broad spotlight (if there is such a thing) for the bottom rack.

Life is one big Domino game.....that's my new quote!!
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Sherry -
Get the "rope lights" at Lowes or Home Depot - they will clip under the top tier with stick on clips and will fully illuminate the lower tier.
Really cool effect too!
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I've no idea where I could get a two tier caddy in UK. I use a single one plus a spinning tower.

With a twin, would a small flourescent strip light under the top one do the trick?

(Fire risk if not a metal caddy?)

I like Bob Doyle's idea of drawing lines, to expand on that you could write, in thick marker, along the edges - O F F W H I T E

C R E A M, Y E L L O W

etc. Staggering the height of each.

(Just seen Mike's post on lights - I'm too slow!)
 
About a year an a half ago, we bought a 3-tiered mat merchandiser display through Gemini Moulding (or the acrylics end of their line, the name which eludes me now). It stands about 4' tall and is on wheels so can be moved if need be. What was great about the product was that they will customize the size for you. I think the standard size is about 40" wide, but I had a size limit, so they made the width 26" by my request. Even with the shorter width, I am still able to display 3 brands of mats, Artique, Crescent and Bainbridge. As far as sorting, I went through all three brands of mats, found the ones that were virtually identical to each other, removed the dupes, and wrote the deletions on the back of the mat I kept. Once that was done, they were all devided by color, stacked, then color coded with a one inch stripe of the appropriate color done with acrylic paint. Has worked very well for us. The paint works better than say a marker, because if you decide that the mat you marked as blue really should have been marked as green, you can sand off the paint and remark a lot easier. To divide the colors, I picked up three sets of plastic dividers from Larson Juhl. Very durable and attractive. They come pre-marked with color separations, but they didn't work for my purposes, so I relabled them using one of those lable machines. So far, working great!
 
We're thinking about dumping all the Crescent mats we have .... sick of their rotten quality issues ... and we may have a two-tiered Gemini acrylic for a bargain price if anyone's interested ...
 
Wow, I almost don't want to tell how I do it. I use mainly Crescent and all my corner samples are in numerical order. I just grab the specifier to get an idea of which mat I want and then can find it by number, real easy. Of course, I should add that on 97% of my jobs, I pick the mat and of those at least half are white. So mine isn't typical.
 
Mike,
LOVE your idea of the rope lights. The problem is, I believe these require a cord (not battery operated). My mat rack is in the center of the room and I don't want to run a cord across to the wall. And I won't run it up to the ceiling and over......I have a REAL thing about cords - ugly!! Any chance there's anything similar that operates by battery? I'll also call Lamps Plus to pick their brain.

Thanks for the idea........and I bet it does look sharp!!
 
This subject is a real pet peeve of mine.

When we first started framing we used different versions of the triangle shaped mat fixture we all know and love. Organized by manufactures, then by color, the system is idiotic and old fashioned.

About five years ago, in a distributors showroom, I saw a Crescent spinner style mat display fixture that displayed mat samples like paint samples in a hardware store. It was perfect. I purchased the $500 fixture and it was worth every dime. Customers love to look at the samples and color matching is fast. The whole design process is simplified and enhanced by this common sense display rack.

However...
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.
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...everyone has gone to 4 inch samples and my beloved Crescent display rack only works with 3 inch mat samples.

Why doesn't Crescent make this rack for 4 inch samples and why doesn't Bainbridge or Artique have something similar?

Doug
 
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