Thread: picture frames

Been posting a lot of questions here but thought I would post what I spent my long weekend doing - picture frames. I make these for myself, I enter art shows (cause my other hobby is photography) and its the cheapest way to get my pics framed.

The timber is just standard grade vic ash from tile importer, really nothing special at all. I sort the boards looking specifically ones for minimal gum veins. I usually get 32x135 and rip them but this time I got mostly 35x90 cause its cheaper and I am a tightarse!

Here are the boards cross cut to rough lengths

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Then I ripped them
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Planed and thicknessed to final size. This took ages...

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I then cut the mitres and then cut the rabbet after the mitres, all of which done on the table saw.

I used a digital angle finder to get it exactly 45degs and used the mitre gauge which came with the saw. Used a piece of scrap timber for the back fence which I screwed into the mitre gauge and used that make a zero clearance back fence to minimise tear out. Did two lengths at the same time so they were exact and labeled them as A B C etc so I know they would be opposing lengths. Used an 80 tooth alternate top bevel blade

The rabbets I just ripped then flip the timber over and ripped again to get rid of the waste. Had to use a chisel to clean up the surface.
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This produced a huge amount of offcuts. It feels sort of wasteful.
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Then glue up. pine cut as pictured (large circle is for squeeze out) and some cheap bunnings ratcheting straps
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Assembled frame yay!
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Then I clean off excess glue and sand to 180 and smooth down edges with 180 paper.

then cut splines (spline jig on table saw) and glue in pieces of jarrah. Used triple chip tooth blade (flattest blade I have) and cut the splines on the back stroke to minimise tear out. Would be handy to have a blade with a flat top. I suppose I could ask the sharpener to grind it that way.

Then cut off excess jarrah and sand the face sides to 240. Then applied the feast western wax (first time using it), waited 15min, buffed and call it done. It was pretty late in the day and I needed to put pictures in a couple to have done asap. Should prob have done at least 2 coats but didnt have time. If people have used this wax before and have advice on it or wax finishes in general would love to hear. unfortunately didnt do many photos of the above stage as I just forgot and was running out of time. But there is pic of the splines with wax on but not buffed:

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and final pics with my photos in the frames
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