thumbnails

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emjs181

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Feb 8, 2008
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I've been reading the thread about joining frames, which has been very educational for me. Could someone explain what thumbnails are, and if there's some reason I should use them?
The only method I'm trained in is underpinning v-nail.. but I'm aware they just aren't sufficient for everything. Especially big, heavy, wide, or tall narrow mouldings. It's particularly hairy when I try to join a hard maple moulding. So I'm examining my options.
Thanks!!

E
 
Thumbnails are offered by companies thatoffer chop. Basically a routed out notch to slip a plastic key into. I prefer v-nailing as it doesn't take away as much wood from the corners. But it is a way to get away from vises and brads, and not have the expense of a v-nailer.
 
I'll order thumb nailed chops if the moulding exceeds 4" in width which is my maximum joining capability with my current equipment. I've found them fairly simple to use.

If a moulding lends itself well to using a strap clamp I can do that too.
 
Thumbnails are cheap plastic inserts that go into a routed out miter. The routing is done with a machine that costs around seven hundred dollars new and around two hundred dollars used.

Thumbnails are known to break easily. Due to their low cost, they are favored by chain store operations and small frame shops that can not afford or refuse to spend the money on proper framing equipment.

My guess is that about fifty percent of the "broken" frames that come to my shop for repairs had been joined with Thumbnails that have broken.

If you want to use inserts, spend the money on a Hoffmann joining machine. The machine costs more, and so do the inserts, but they won't break and your corners will be professional.

Hoffmann Machine Co. 1-858-486-4343 http://www.hoffmann-usa.com/

This is the machine we use: http://www.hoffmann-usa.com/htm/machines/mu2p.htm

I would be gun shy of that hand held model they sell. It looks more problematic than it's worth. More of a home hobby type tool.

John
 
I use both. Most of my joining is on the v-nailer of which I have 2 types. I use thumbnail for odd-wide-or-tall shapes that the v-nailers arn't suited for. Although I have v-nailed almost anything and everything at one time or another.
 
I can't say I've ever seen a broken thumbnail corner either.

When I thumbnail I still glue. I look as the thumbnail as more of a clamping system to draw and hold the corner together until the glue sets up.
 
Jerry Ervin said:
Wow John People must be ruff on frames on the left coast. I have never seen a broken thumbnail corner.

Big Box stores do thousands and thousands of jobs a week using the technology. If it has such a high failure rate, why do they keep doing it?
Click to expand...

They keep doing it because of the low cost. People on the east coast are just as rough on frames as they are out here on the good side of the country. It has nothing to do with rough.

If a Thumbnail machine is not adjusted exactly right, the Thumbnails will break. They will also break under normal expansion/contraction of wood. Thumbnails are made from plastic that is just below the quality of the plastic used in toys.

The only people who have never seen a broken Thumbnail are the people who use that system of joining. If a frame comes apart, their customers tend to go to a shop that will put it back together properly.

John
 
Jerry Ervin said:
Wow John People must be ruff on frames on the left coast. I have never seen a broken thumbnail corner.

Big Box stores do thousands and thousands of jobs a week using the technology. If it has such a high failure rate, why do they keep doing it?
Click to expand...

I've seen many a broken or failed thumbnail. The plastic seemed brittle and it was broken. The corners were pretty good, but the thumbnail itself was broken, on more than one frame.
 
I've seen quite a few broken thumbnails here. I don't get any busted miters with v-nails in them. I had one month that I repaired about 15 that had thumbnails in them.
 
We don't see thumbnails here at all, not even from big boxes.

I didn't even know what they where, until I read about it on the grumble.

Mike
 
I think what a lot of framers do not understand is that just because a machine has had a lot of advertising & promotion, or/and it comes from a reputable manufacturer or distributor, does not necessarily make it a professional quality machine.

In my fourty five years in this business I have seen a lot of "junk" being sold as professional quality equipment. Just about every tool we need can be bought from reputable suppliers as professional equipment only to turn out to be worthless junk. From mat cutters, wall cutters, "V" nailers, saws, and yes Thumbnailers.

One of the biggest problems is that frame shops are reluctant to put any significant money into their equipment, so the people who furnish us our equipment do the same.

Many tools that are manufactured are not done so with small frame shops in mind at all, but more for the factory operations. The bigger cut off saws, some CMC mat cutters, moulders, etc. The Hoffmann joiner was built for the cabinet making industry, and that is where it is advertised and promoted, not to our trade.

Sadly, most of us are notorious cheapskates when it comes to purchasing equipment, so we end up with things like the Thumbnailer being promoted to us as a "professional" piece of equipment.

John
 
WOW

I withdraw all my comments.

Apparently I do not know what I am talking about.

I never thought that someone as ill-informed as I am could actually support myself for 20 years.

Maybe it has all been an illusion.

I must be one of those "cheapskates". I only wrote off $40k on Section 179 for 2008 equipment purchases.
 
Don't get all mad Jerry, we are all in the same boat when it comes to spending money, we don't like to.

I have used the Thumbnailer and had problems with frames coming apart a year or so after they were picked up. Then I saw a post by Rob Markoff on the grumble a few years back about the Hoffmann Joiner. After trying it out, I was sold.

There is no comparison between a Thumbnailer and a Hoffmann. After using a Hoffmann I could never go back to using a Thumbnailer. The Hoffmann costs $3,500.00. The Thumbnailer costs around $700.00. They really are completely different tools.

Yes, you can make custom frames with a hammer and nails, however a Cassesse makes it a whole lot easier and better. (no nail holes.)

Yes, a Thumbnailer will get your frame together and out the door. The problem with the Thumbnailer is you just can't trust it. You do not know if your customer went to another frame shop to get your work corrected. To me, it's not worth the risk.

John
 
Jerry Ervin said:
Wow John People must be ruff on frames on the left coast. I have never seen a broken thumbnail corner.

Big Box stores do thousands and thousands of jobs a week using the technology. If it has such a high failure rate, why do they keep doing it?
Click to expand...

Because they know their customers will bring the broken frames to us to repair, and then explode when the cost of repair is greater than $10.
 
I guess I could add that a going cabinet manufacturer expects a saw to run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars....for one saw. A going picture framer will look for a used saw for around two thousand dollars or less. A cabinet shop expects to pay two or three hundred dollars or more for a blade. A picture framer thinks a sixty dollar blade does the job just fine.

The table saw in my shop cost five hundred dollars, a cabinet shop would not waste the floor space with it. My CTD 45 cost $1,500.00 used. A cabinet shop would buy a brand new one rather than risk losing time messing with a used one.

Different industries, different suppliers, different tools.

John
 
I have both a thumbnailer and vnailer. Both IMO are good machines. I use the thumbnailer as back up and for difficult mouldings that I know I couldnt get a good join on the vnailer. I have gotten a few repairs where the vnail snapped, but the frames fell off the wall. I can tell ya, that I would rather repair a frame with a snapped plastic insert than a frame with a gazillion vnails in it.
 
Hey Guys,

Isn't it the glue that holds the joints together and the v-nail, wedge, or Thumbnailer keeps it together until it dries? I have seen failed joints with v-nails, brads, wedges, and Thumbnails in my 23 years of being a framer. Sometimes failure occurs because of inferior glue, the wrong v-nail, operator error, no glue, being dropped or a bad batch of plastic plugs. Sometimes a plastic plug is not appropriate for the frame. I believe that the manufacturer of these of plugs admits that there was a bad batch out there at one time.

Perhaps before disapproving and badmouthing a method, consider all of the facts. Cheap glue? Inexperienced framer? Innapropriate method of joining for the moulding? Different climate? The Northeast is very different than the Southwest. Perhaps a framer should contact the manufacturer to ask why it broke if they seem to have this problem? If it was so bad, why does such a big guy keep offering it? They have an amazing science lab with some pretty smart science guys there. I've seen one of their labs and I know that much thought goes into their products.

There are many framers that use the Thumbnail method for joining frames. One friend has been in business for 35 years and swears by it. I'm 1/2 hour away from him and never gotten a broken joint of his to repair. I've been using the system for years and have never gotten a broken joint back to repair. He hasn't repaired any of mine either. We also have a v-nailer but prefer the Thumbnailer for many jobs. Not great for volume, but a nice choice for a perfect join if you know what you are doing. The quality of my joints is superb.

Being able to share opinions makes the Grumble great! But....I'm sticking up for my machine because some might not have considered all of the facts. I know that my way isn't the best for all, but there are framers that have great success using this method. Bash on! :icon21:

Susan MCPF
 
Thumbnail routing is how we started framing. Distributors charged a couple of dollars per chop and we were able to nicely join frames using nothing more that a set of clamps.

It’s not a bad way to get started but I wouldn’t recommend buying a thumbnail tool.

Let your distributor do it for you until you can afford a pneumatic underpinner.

If you plan to buy length moulding and a saw you should also budget for an underpinned.

Doug
 
With a Hoffmann joiner, you need no glue at all. I, however, use Cornerweld on all my frames.

With a Hoffman joiner you can join a four to six inch shadow box frame made out of maple or any other hardwood with hardly any effort. Your miters will be perfect.

I've been at this for over fourty five years, I have tried them all.

As a side note, a Hoffmann bit will fit in a Thumbnailer. The inserts are around fifty dollars a box of about five hundred inserts. The problem is that the Thumbnailer does not always align your miters properly, the Hoffmann machine does.

A Thumbnailer only routs about an inch deep, a Hoffmann will rout over three inches deep. You can buy two inch long inserts or you can stack them.

I have an old Thumbnailer that I modified years ago that will rout several inches deep. I will sell it for $400.00. It works perfectly, but it is a Thumbnailer.

John
 
I should point out that for most of our frames, we use a C-810 V nailer. We use the Hoffmann for hardwood frames, very large frames, and shadowbox frames. It will join mouldings as small as 1/2" up to 5",6",7",8" and wider.

It will join any shape frame, octagons, triangles, whatever. The machines start at around $1,000.00 and up.

John
 
This is going to sound crazy, but I have been wracking my brain and I can't remember ever once repairing a thumbnailed frame. Possibly it's just not common in this area. I've fit a few frames that were customer made and thumbnailed, but by very analytical hobby framers, and they were pretty solid.
 
susang said:
...Perhaps before disapproving and badmouthing a method, consider all of the facts...

Being able to share opinions makes the Grumble great! But....I'm sticking up for my machine because some might not have considered all of the facts. I know that my way isn't the best for all, but there are framers that have great success using this method. ... :icon21:

Susan MCPF
Click to expand...

Finally... a voice of reason.

:kaffeetrinker_2:
 
Mike Labbe @ GTP said:
We don't see thumbnails here at all, not even from big boxes.

I didn't even know what they where, until I read about it on the grumble.

Mike
Click to expand...

Mike, all the thumbnails that I have had to fix came from a small shop 6 miles away from me. She used thumbnails exclusively, and order exclusively from LJ. I guess LJ isn't in your neck of the woods yet ;)
 
LJ has a similar product which they call "Wedges". Perhaps "Thumbnails" have a (tm) for a specific brand.

I wasn't putting the thumbnails down, I was just saying I haven't ever SEEN one come in for repair or otherwise. I don't think they are widely used in our (Rhode Island) market.

I asked Andy, who has been doing this probably 17 or 18 years. He said that yes he has seen them, but only a couple times. He thought they may have been from do-it-yourself kits.

We're using about 98% vnails here, 1% joined, and 1% nails, which works in our case. (with an inexpensive VN-42 machine) If it is an ESPECIALLY troublesome extra wide moulding, we may opt to have the vendor join it.

I think folks are getting overly defensive about how they do it. Whatever works reliably for YOU... is good :) We are all on the same team.

Mike
 
For us, at least, thumbnails have their niche. In-house framing gets underpinned, but the frames we sell online are all sent out routed w/ thumbnails.
 
I use mainly a vnailer... as a "backup" i have a thumbnailer. Sometimes i use thumbnails for larger mouldings. Compared to vnails, the thumbnail inserts are NOT cheap. To use thumbnails correctly, you have to be careful when setting the depth of the cut... you should be able to push them "almost" all the way in with your thumb. You should NOT have to use a hammer to drive them in like a nail. I find the Hoffmann inserts (thumbnails) are better made than the Bainbridge thumbnails, so, i called the Hoffmann company and ordered the bit (dovetail shape) used in their dovetail machine and a few boxes of their dovetail inserts. I changed the blade to the Hoffmann blade and have been using their dovetail inserts ever since. Compare the two and you will see why Hoffman inserts are better than Bainbridge thumbnails. Hoffman also offers wooden inserts, not only plastic. :icon19:

(Tip: [try this, it works] Join polystyrene moulding with the Hoffmann bit and inserts. When making the cuts, go very fast in and out, but only any a little at a time - 1/4" to 1/2" deep. Glue the polystyrene moulding corners together with superglue like you usually do. Then, put a couple of drops on each side of the dovetail shaped insert and, using your thumb, push it in as deep as you can, then use a hammer for the rest. THIS CANNOT BE DONE WITH BAINBRIDGE THUMBNAILS>)
 
JRB said:
A Thumbnailer only routs about an inch deep, a Hoffmann will rout over three inches deep. You can buy two inch long inserts or you can stack them.
Click to expand...

WRONG!!!!!!!!!! MY thumnailer goes deeper that 1 inch it goes to about 3 inches or more.......

So spending A LOT of $$$$ on equipment makes the equipment sooooo much better huh??? :shrug:

I HATE MY V-NAILER!!!!!!!!! Its a mutual hate.......:p
I think framers use whatever joining system they are comfortable using........:D And shouldnt be shunned for other ways they do it.....

Theres a guy that has a little frame shop in So IL.......he uses nails and glue.......best joins I have ever seen in my life.....:shrug:

Oh........and I've never had a frame come back in becuz the thumbnails have broke :p
 
blackiris said:
WRONG!!!!!!!!!! MY thumnailer goes deeper that 1 inch it goes to about 3 inches or more.......

So spending A LOT of $$$$ on equipment makes the equipment sooooo much better huh??? :shrug:

I HATE MY V-NAILER!!!!!!!!! Its a mutual hate.......:p
I think framers use whatever joining system they are comfortable using........:D And shouldnt be shunned for other ways they do it.....

Theres a guy that has a little frame shop in So IL.......he uses nails and glue.......best joins I have ever seen in my life.....:shrug:

Oh........and I've never had a frame come back in becuz the thumbnails have broke :p
Click to expand...

Does the guy in So IL make his own homemade wooden miter box and uses a handsaw to cut the mouldings also? Does he use little brads or glaze points to hold the glass, print, & backing in the frame? Is he the same guy on tv that might take all day just to make a drawer with "dovetail" cuts for a cabinet he took 3 months to build? Wake up man... if i got paid by the hour i would not only use the old glue and nail trick, but i might even sit there and watch the glue dry... lol. :p
 
Hey ... I use the "old glue and nail trick" and my frame packages are fit with wire brads... and yes, some of my frames take all day to make.

Waiting for the glue to dry allows me to Grumble!

I resemble your remark!

:smileyshot22:
 
ahohen1 said:
Does the guy in So IL make his own homemade wooden miter box and uses a handsaw to cut the mouldings also? Does he use little brads or glaze points to hold the glass, print, & backing in the frame? Is he the same guy on tv that might take all day just to make a drawer with "dovetail" cuts for a cabinet he took 3 months to build? Wake up man... if i got paid by the hour i would not only use the old glue and nail trick, but i might even sit there and watch the glue dry... lol. :p
Click to expand...

I glue all my corners in a vise first then shoot a v-nail or two as a back up to the glue. I want my corners perfect and frankly with the variations in moulding heights from stick to stick for me this is only the acceptable method. I want the moulding to FEEL flush along with appearing so. If you multi-task you always have corners in the vises setting as you are doing other tasks. So no, You don't have to "sit and watch the glue dry".

As far as thumbnails go...I have frames of my own that have been thumbnailed ten years ago when that was the method being used, and they have been moved around often and I haven't had any problems. These are LARGE frames, over 32 x 40. :shrug:
 
Before 'V' nailers, Thumbnailers, and whatever other contraptions we all now use, ALL frame shops joined their frames with hammer and nails. My first ten years of framing, that was all we used.

A proper hammer and nail method of joining a frame was called a "slip join." This was because one leg of the frame was held by a regular bench vise. The other leg was held in your hand, drilled, glued, then hammered together. As you hammered, the piece you held in your hand would align with the piece in the vise, which is why it was called a slip join. The aligning action actually locked the two pieces together creating one of the strongest joins ever.

In those days the framers that were looked down upon and sneered at by the "real" framers, were the ones who used corner clamps to hold the frame together while they drilled and nailed it. Then their was the frame shops that used corner clamps and an air nailer, that was the worst join of all.

Shops that just glued their corners together were in the same league as the shops that air nailed their frames together, they were not considered "real framers".

The theory that all the mechanical devise should do is hold the frame together while the glue dried is one that was promoted by folks who manufactured mechanical methods of joining frames that would not stand on their own, without glue.

Factories used machines that were called "cut and curf machines". It took many hours to set up one of those machines for a particular moulding, but then they could crank frames together at an amazing rate that had very strong joins.

Many factories, especially in Mexico, used slip joins for years. This was because the slip join was fast and made an exceptionally strong frame.

A good slip join person could put together a frame in less than two minutes.

The down side to all of the methods that used nails was that an extra step is required to finish the frame, filling in and touching up the nail holes.

John
 
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