I made some more frames for Melissa’s paintings. I tried something new with these and added splines to the miters which reinforces the joint and, since I used a contrasting wood, adds some visual flair. These were finished with a semi-gloss water-based polyurethane sprayed via HVLP. They’re all sized to hold a 16×20 canvas.
Top to bottom, the wood for each frame is Cherry, Black Walnut, Khaya (African Mahogany) and Maple. I used Maple splines for all but the Maple frame which I used Walnut splines.
And for those that like to see how the sausage is made…here are some build pictures:
Simple miter jig, mallet happened to be handy to use as a stop block
First cut for adding the rabbet which will hold the canvas, the second cut is 90 degrees to this one to remove a section.
Cherry frame
Using the spline jig and a rip blade to cut the notch for spline.
Gluing in splines
Prepping walnut for another frame
Dry fitting the miters. This is one of 2 custom frames I made for a customer.
Gluing up walnut frame
Showing the cut off table saw on left and after cleaning up with a handplane on right.
Showing how I tape joints, apply glue then “roll up” the frame.
Band clamp until glue sets
Gluing in more splines.
Cleaning up the outsides with a card scraper and hand plane
Nice and smooth
The batch of 6 frames, 2 for customer and 4 for me
