Frame

My husband brought home three paintings from his mission trip to Thailand. He brought them back in tubes so he asked me to frame them. One of the paintings was meant for his grandma and I chose to work on that one first as I haven't made anything for her yet that I can remember. I started by making a frame that the canvas could be stapled to. I just ripped a 2x2 in half then ripped each half again so I had four long pieces. After I had stapled the painting to this frame I realized it was off to the side just a tiny bit (which you can see in the picture) but figured the frame would cover it so it didn't matter. My husband saw it at this point and said that's all he wanted but I already had my mind set on making a frame because: a) I wanted to try my hand at making it and the process seemed interesting, b) I didn't think his grandma would like to hang the painting without a frame, and c) the size of the painting wasn't standard so if she did want to frame it she'd have to have it custom framed which can be expensive.

This went fairly well so I went about making the outside frame. I found one I wanted to try made by Steve Ramsey that used a router which you can see here: Steve Ramsey's picture frame video. I changed the process a little because I didn't have my router table built yet and so for some steps it was just easier to use the table saw. It came out okay but I had quite a bit of trouble with this frame. It would have gone much smoother if this were a smaller frame, but I used 2x4's as my rough stock and cut them to the final dimensions I needed for the picture. My struggle started when I couldn't get the bow out of one of the boards. I noticed it when I was cutting it but didn't even think about how that was going to make it so the frame wouldn't lie flat because I was cutting it up into the four sides of the frame anyway. I only realized I used that piece for one of the long sides after I glued it up. I tried to wet the offending board and clamp it flat over night but I didn't have high hopes for this because the piece down the middle is glued into the frame and so the bow was pretty much glued into place. I'll still give it to my husbands grandma but I don't know how nice it's going to look hanging on the wall. I also found that the white part showing on the painting was still showing a little inside the frame so I took all the staples out and re-stapled it. All in all I learned a lot from the process and also tried out a new to me wood putty by Minwax that matches the stain you are using and I really like the result of it, so the whole thing was a good learning experience.