Custom Picture Frame Molding with a Lie-Nielsen #66 Beading Tool

PART FOUR: FINISHING TOUCHES

Completed Frame with it's Painting

     The customized frame is now complete and looking back over this project I realize how much I enjoyed creating the custom profile using the #66 Bronze Beading Tool from Lie-Nielsen.  As I mentioned, I've made scratch stocks before for my furniture work and taught students in my classes how to make them as well but this tool makes it much easier.  It's much easier to set the distance that you want the profile to be from the edge, just nice to use all around.

     When I delivered the painting I noticed how much the color and finish of it matched a dresser the client had in their bedroom.  As usual, photographs on blogs really don't do the project justice but you can see the gleam the finished frame has,  notice the left, top corner?  Another thing you may notice is how the areas that were profiled with the beading tool are slightly darker.  That's because the Smoked Poplar didn't cut as cleanly as a hardwood might but it gives a nice shadow line and adds some dimension to the frame.

     We're unsure as to who the artist is of this painting as it's unsigned.  Appears to be the master of the house talking to the kitchen maid -- maybe she broke a dish or something!  If anyone recognizes this work let me know who you think may have painted it.  Many people tend to think of a frame being jewelry for the painting and I hope I achieved that with this one.

Custom Picture Frame Molding with a Lie-Nielsen #66 Beading Tool

PART TWO:  BEADING THE FRAME

Lie-Nielsen #66 Bronze Beading Tool

     Wow, isn't' that a thing of beauty?  Even the guy who gave it to me and is a power tool fanatic admitted to the beauty of this tool -- said he'd buy it just to put it on display!  The tool is based on the Stanley #66 which I believe was manufactured from the 1880's to the 1940's.  The quality of this Lie-Nielsen tool is outstanding and the only preparation work needed was to polish the faces at each cutting edge.  Before electric routers came along this was the tool to use to make moldings and profiles.  Another tool was Stanley's #45 plane which cut profiles rather than scraped them like the beading tool does.  I've worked with the #45 and believe me, set up and use of the beading tool is much easier.  Matter of fact, I e-bayed the #45, it just didn't seem worth the effort to me.  

     

Left Side Planed -- Right Side from the Planer

     Before beginning the beading process, the show face of each board was planed with a smoothing plane.  It's an important step that is often left out by some but if you look at the picture on the left I think the result is obvious.  To do this, I use another Lie-Nielsn tool, a Bronze smooth plane.  Electric planers, no matter how good they are will tend to leave chatter marks all across the board.  You can see them pretty clearly and they're magnified once the board has a finish on it and the light reflects off of the surface.  In my work, this is a pretty important step.

As I mentioned in part one, I cut the first bead for the sight edge before cutting the rabbet out.  That was done with the cutter on the far right in the picture above.  The question will be asked: "How long did that take you to do?" and the answer was less than 25 minutes.  This frame required two pieces 4' long and another two at 3'.  You need to have a bit extra since it's difficult to start and stop the beading tool right at the end of a board.

First Profile: Sight Bead

     To use the beading tool the first step is to set the depth.  This is done by holding your piece of wood on the sole of the tool, sliding the cutter to the required depth, and tightening it in place.  The fence is then located on whatever side works best for you and your ready to go.  The first few passes are critical.  The tool is pulled towards you and it's important to tilt the trailing edge up so the cutter basically just scribes the wood at first.  It doesn't take much to maintain pressure against the board with the fence.  After the cutter has scribed its profile into the board you can take deeper and deeper cuts.  Sounds corny but you just have to listen to the wood -- the sound the cutter makes will let you know if you're trying to remove too much material at one time. 

All Pieces Completed

     It took a little over an hour to bead all of the required material.  Although the power tool junkies may scoff at that and think the work could have been done with a router, maybe quicker, I'd have to disagree.  First of all, finding some of these profiles in available router bits is probably not possible.  These are pretty detailed.  By the time you set up fences, install/remove the different bits, run the risk of burning the wood, and then add clean up time to the picture I'm not sure you could do any better.  Besides, I worked off some calories so I could eat more this Thanksgiving!  One last plus for the beading tool is that you can cut your own profile to either match an existing one or make a custom design just for your own work.  I like to put a small detail along the apron of tables and this would be an example of where this can come into play.

     The last thing I wanted to do is to compare this Smoked Poplar to Black Walnut it's been engineered to replicate.  The piece of Walnut is on the left and you can see that the detail the cutter left is crisper.  It also cuts cleaner and forms a shaving rather than the dust formed when the Smoked Poplar is beaded.  There is a positive to this though, when the Poplar is oiled there is a nice contrast between the scraped bead, the rougher background surface, and the surrounding planed surface of the rest of the molding.

     All in all, a very rewarding and productive experiment.  All that remains is to cut and join the frame, finish it and mount the artwork.  I'll post that picture when it's complete.

Custom Picture Frame Molding with a Lie-Nielsen #66 Beading Tool

PART ONE:  PICTURE FRAME FROM 4/4 MATERIAL

     After using and teaching others how to make and use their own scratch stock for many years I recently received a Bronze beading tool from Lie-Nielsen tool works.  If you've never heard of them I'd encourage you click on the link and check out the quality of their Made in the USA tools.  I'm a huge fan of them and own a few planes, a spokeshave, set of chisels, and now their beading tool.  As things often go, a series of events led me to this commission for a custom frame that will be approximately 24" x 36".  The gift of the beading tool is the first in that series of events.
     The next event happened at our last meeting of the Sin City Woodworkers.  A local supplier had dropped off some samples of thermo-treated Poplar.  It was referred to as "Smoked Poplar" and is a product designed to replicate Walnut at about a third of the cost.  It's light weight, should be very stable, the color goes all the way through, but it is somewhat brittle.  That's probably because of the thermo process the wood goes through.  Matter of fact, when you cut or bead it there is a charcoal odor -- like you left the steaks on the bbq too long!
     The last of the events was being called to give an estimate on a picture frame.  The clients were pretty open as to the design of the profile but knew they wanted something dark.  I contacted the lumber company and was able to get a piece to experiment with.  I designed a profile, made the corner sample, and after showing it to the client, got the job.  Here is the sample that earned me the commission:

Corner Sample: Smoked Poplar

You can see how rich and dark this material looks and from a distance you probably would mistake it for Walnut.  The finish on it is natural Watco oil.  There are differences between the two species of course.  As I mentioned brittleness is one of them and it's much softer but for this application that won't present any problem at all.


     Creating your own picture frame moldings from scratch is an interesting endeavor.  There are many details to it but let me give you the basic procedure so you can try it on your own, feel free to contact me if you want more detail.  After deciding on the material and width you need to consider whether the frame is for a stretched canvas, a board, or a watercolor.  If it's a canvas, you need to either use wood thicker than the 3/4" stock readily available or use this trick I'll talk you through here.

Lay out of  Rabbet

Back 15 degree bevel

               

      Start by cutting the back of the piece at 15 degrees, this will force the molding out away from the wall.  This is best done on the tablesaw.  Next you set a bevel at 15 degrees and draw in the rabbet.  Keep in mind that the bevel you cut on the back sits against the wall, that's why the rabbet is also cut at the 15 degrees.  Set the height of your blade by extending the distance to the side of the molding, then make your first cut with the piece laying flat on the tablesaw.

Second cut for Rabbet

Completed molding before beading

   
     The second cut is a little trickier and the way I do it is probably not OSHA approved!  It's difficult to determine the exact height of this cut so what I do is to estimate it the best I can, push the piece through until it's just past the blade, then lift it straight up by pushing on the back of the piece.  Then I'll slowly raise the blade a little at a time until the two angled cuts meet.  Once they are,  you should set a feather board up to maintain pressure against the fence and cut the remaining pieces.  You'll end up with a piece of material that looks like the one on the right.

     Now we're ready to start the fun part -- beading the frame!  The pictures above were taken when I created the corner sample.  The only change I made when doing the actual frame was to cut the bead at the sight edge before I cut the rabbet.  I wanted to make sure it would be strong enough as the bead was formed.