Smoothing the Edges

A fantastic project I had the opportunity to work on involves a common issue with custom picture framing: the corners don’t match up. This is a problem you get especially on frames that have a dramatically heavy relief or texture to them, and frames that have some sort of sculpted pattern. At Coventry Gallery and Framing, we have a solution to this common issue: we sculpt the corners by hand.

The moulding itself comes in long sticks of wood. I receive them in eight to ten foot lengths which I then cut down into four pieces with perfectly beveled corners that fit together to make your frame. Therein lies the cause of the problem: While that pattern may be continuous down the length, chunks of that pattern get cut out of the whole in order to make those four sides of the frame. The result is that the patterns meet at the corners and stop suddenly, distracting the eye with its imperfection.

In this instance we have such a frame that our customer wants on their piece. It has an attractive, deep brown rope pattern that owes part of its beauty to the heavily sculpted design. The customer loves the style, and I feel it’s perfect for the piece we’ve selected it for. However, we’re both concerned: you can see right on the sample that the corners don’t quite match up where the round, rolling curves stop abruptly at the seam. We want a more finished look that doesn’t take so much away from the presentation.

So I chop the frame as usual. When I join the corners of the frame, I can see that we have the exact problem as exemplified in the moulding’s corner sample. I’ve colored the flat part of the join, where the two legs come together, to make the bare wood the same color as the surface of the frame. This makes the problem less of an eyesore, but the interruption of the pattern is still fairly noticeable.

I then apply an air-drying sculpting material to the uneven pattern in the corners to fix this. It works just like clay in that I can sculpt it to whatever shape I need. I pack a little bit into each spot where the pattern stops and sculpt one leg into the other for a smooth, rounded transition. This covers the seam where the two legs meet and lets the pattern on one leg blend into the pattern on its adjoining piece.

Letting it sit overnight, the sculpting material hardens, and I prime the bright white material with a rusty-red primer. The wood’s original finish was primed with such a color which you can just barely see through the finish, and I want to duplicate the color of the frame as much as possible. Once dry, I apply a couple darker coats, bringing the color of the sculpted area to an exact match of the rest of the frame.

The result is beautiful. Our customer gets to have a heavily sculpted, rich looking frame that has hand crafted, seamless corners. The best part: I don’t charge extra for this! I want every frame that comes out of my shop to look like it was professionally crafted, and I will go to great lengths to achieve that if need be. Most custom frame shops would stop at the uneven join, falling back on the excuse that this is the property of the frame. At Coventry Gallery and Framing, we are craftsmen, our standards are higher, and you get a lot more for the same amount of money.