WEEKEND PROJECT PICTURE FRAME MOLDINGS

1 20 WoodsmithNo. 121 PICTUREFRAMEMOLDINGSM aking your own PICTURE FRAME MOLDINGS doesn t require a lot of time orexpensive equipment. Just a router table and few scraps of I opened the door, the look onmy neighbor s face said it all. I vegot a favor to ask. he muttered, a lit-tle ner vously, My parent s fiftiethwedding anniversar y is coming upnext month. In his hand he held anold, hand-tinted wedding FRAME surrounding the photo wasa bit beat up. The veneer was chipped,and the glass cracked. I had a prettygood idea what my neighbor had inmind, but I waited to hear his stor y. I was hoping you might have sometime to help me build a new FRAME fortheir wedding photograph. I wantsomething nice but not too fancy, andI just haven t been able to find whatI m looking for.

2 I smiled and motionedhim in, and we headed into the BIN. Our first order of busi-ness was to see what we had to workwith in the way of stock. That s one ofthe nice things about making pictureframe MOLDINGS it s a great way toput all those long, narrow cut-offsyou ve been saving to good use. Wepulled out some of the straightestpieces we could find of several dif-ferent species cherr y, ash,mahogany, and even some PROFILES. Next came the realchallenge coming up with someinteresting designs that didn t call fora lot of fancy router bits. At first Ithought this might be difficult. Butas we started to sketch out someideas, I was amazed at how many dif-ferent designs we came up with usingonly a handful of the most basic routerbits.

3 In no time at all, we had half adozen different picked a design that workedwell with the size of the photographand got busy ripping the stock towidth and routing the profiles on therouter table. In just a couple of hours,we were ready to wipe a coat of finishon the completed that FRAME really got me tothinking about what woodworking isall about. In a single afternoon, webuilt a PROJECT from start to finish. Thefinished FRAME looked ever y bit asnice as one that you might find in aframe shop. And since it was builtwith scraps, the cost was next to noth-ing. Finally, my neighbor had the sat-isfaction of giving his parents a spe-cial anniversar y gift that he had builtwith his own of this made me realize that pic-ture frames would make a goodWoodsmith PROJECT .

4 So I ve includednot only the FRAME that my neighborand I built, but five other designs aswell. Each of the MOLDINGS on the nextfew pages can be made with just afew common router bits. (You ll needa router table and a table saw to rip thestock to width.)MITERING. making a FRAME is really atwo-step process. First you make theframe molding . That s what is shownon the next few pages. But once youhave the molding in hand, you stillhave to miter the pieces and put themtogether in a FRAME . And to help youwith that process, we ve included aseparate article on cutting PICTURE -perfect miter joints, see page Before you get startedmaking all sorts of frames, there sone point worth mentioning. All ofthe frames in this article are shownwith a 3/8"-deep rabbet on the rabbet is designed to hold a pieceof glass, a photograph and a card-board backer.

5 If you are planning ondisplaying a thicker work of art, oryou want to use mat boards, you mayhave to increase the depth of the rab-bet. Keep in mind this may meanusing thicker stock for the 121 Woodsmith21An easy way to dress up an oth-er wise ordinar y-looking frameis to use a contrasting wood asan accent. In this FRAME , a mush-room-shaped accent strip isglued into a groove that is routeddown the center of the main part of this FRAME isjust a piece of 3/4"-thick stockwith an 1/8" cove routed alongeach edge, see Step 1. Then agroove for the accent strip and arabbet for the glass and pictureare routed, see Steps 2 and accent strip is just a 3/8"-thick piece of bullnose moldingwith a tenon that fits into thegroove in the FRAME .

6 This tenonis actually a hair shorter thanthe depth of the groove in orderto prevent it from bottoming outand creating a gap where theaccent strip and FRAME the accent strip is sosmall and narrow, it would bedifficult (and possibly danger-ous) to rout the profile after theblank is cut to size. To solve thisproblem, just rout the profile onthe edge of a wider piece ofstock, then rip the inlay strip tosize, see Steps 4 through a larger FRAME , the width ofboth the FRAME and the accentstrip is increased. And to var ythe appearance and lighten thelook of the FRAME , two sizes ofcoves are routed along the edgesof the FRAME , see Steps 1 and 2. Placing the larger cove onthe outside edge of the mold-ing gives the FRAME more of athree-dimensional look.

7 Thismakes it appear less massiveand cumbersome without sac-rificing again, the groove for theaccent strip is routed with astraight bit. But this time, thegroove is centered between thetwo coves. It s not centered onthe workpiece, see Step 3. Keepthis in mind when setting thefence on your router the inside edge of theblank, rout a !/4 cove, usingeither a core box bit or a cove cutting the FRAME blankto width, rout a !/2 covealong the outside groove for the accentstrip is centered between thethe two coves, not the starting on the accentstrip, rout a rabbet in theframe for the glass and edges of the accent stripare shaped on a wide blankbefore cutting the piece create the bullnose profileon the accent strip, roundover both edges of a wide blank.

8 5 Two passes with a straightbit create the shoulders ofthe tenon on the accent to the table saw,cut the accent strip from theblank and glue it to the a !/4 -dia. core box bit,rout a !/8 cove along bothedges of the FRAME the FRAME blank tightagainst the fence while rout-ing a groove down the Strip FrameWide Accent Strip3 Before starting on the accentstrip, rout a rabbet in theframe for the glass and 121 When making a piece of furniture, Ioften use built-up molding . This isjust two or more simple pieces ofmolding that are stacked together tocreate a wider same technique can also beused to make PICTURE FRAME instead of stacking the pieces oneon top of the other, you simply stack them side by this case, I added a simple beadmolding alongside a cove molding .

9 Iused walnut for both the bead mold-ing and the cove molding , see you could use two different typesof wood for a made the coved piece first by rout-ing a stepped roundover along oneedge and a cove along the other, seeSteps 1 and 2. The roundover createsa shadow line that will help to set offthe bead molding , making it standout a little more. Then the rabbet forthe glass and PICTURE is routed on theinside bottom edge, see Step make the bead molding , justrout an1/8" roundover along bothsides of a blank made from 1/4"-thickstock, see Step , the bead molding is simplyglued to the cove molding . The trickhere is to keep both pieces flush alongthe bottom. And to do this, it helps tohave a nice flat surface to work onwhile gluing the pieces together.

10 (Iused the top of my table saw.) Single Bead ProfileDouble Bead ProfileFor a larger PICTURE FRAME , here s awider molding profile that uses twobeads one on the inside and anoth-er identical one on the outside of theframe. The bead MOLDINGS sandwicha flat, wide piece of wood that makesup the main portion of the of its simple, symmetri-cal design, this FRAME is ver ystraightfor ward in construction. Itstarts as a single blank, cut to width.(I used ash.) A small roundover witha shoulder is rout-ed along the topedgesoftheblank, see Step next stepis to make is identical tothe molding used in the frameabove. I chose cherr y this time tocreate a contrast between the beadsand main part of the FRAME , seephoto at top of gluing the beads to the sideof the FRAME , a rabbet for the glassand PICTURE is routed, see Step first step is to create asmall, stepped roundover onthe outside edge of the !