Woodworks by.John

I always enjoy it when I’m commissioned to make a Tabernacle frame, it’s a different twist on frame making and allows a lot of creativity. To really get a sense of how the piece will turn out I like making a full size drawing first, to me that’s much easier than having to scale something like a column that’s 1 1/4″ wide down to fit on a smaller scale. I’m sure that many of you may use computer aided drafting but that’s not in my wheelhouse and honestly I enjoy this process. When I taught drafting as part of middle school woodshop starting in the late 70’s my goal was to have my students be able to conceive something in their mind, transfer it to paper, and then build it with their own hands — that’s an achievement!

This frame is for an 11″ x 14″ panel, the first step was making the main section of the frame using haunched mortise and tenon joinery. Once dry the rabbet and 45° chamfer for the sight edge were cut using router bits. These cuts need to be squared off with chisels in the corners. Next are the top and bottom pieces that are both the same size and are chamfered, first with the router bits and then block planed to remove those inevitable chatter marks routers tend to leave. They are attached to the top and bottom of the frame with glue, screws, and plugged holes.

Now comes the creative part, I took inspiration for the columns from the gothic like appearance of the cathedral itself. The columns are 3/16″ thick and about 1 1/4″ wide. After scribing a line down the center a v-chisel was used to create the illusion of 2 columns. The pointed tops were first cut with a coping saw and then pared with a chisel to their final shape. Creating the space between columns was done with a 3/16″ router bit. That was accomplished by setting up stop blocks against the fence to locate the start and stop points of that area. What I’m calling the pillar blocks at the bottom of the columns were made with Lie-Nielsen’s #66 beading tool. They are about 1/2″ in thickness and 4″ tall. The width was determined by the spacing of the beads determined by the cutter. I also cut a bead on the edges. After these blocks were sized and squared I decided they needed a chamfer on the top. This was quick work with a small block plane. These parts are attached to the frame with glue and 23 gauge pins. They leave a slight depression which is concealed with Durham Rock Hard Water putty. This is a product I’ve used for years and always recommend. Unlike other putties this is a powder you mix with water and the advantage is it never dries out in the can. In this small area I used a palette knife to apply the putty. After a light sanding the frame was ready for finishing. I’ve added some pictures below showing the process of making those blocks.

For the finish I begin with Zinsser sealer on all surfaces. After taping off the back of the frame a coat of Dux red burnisher/sealer is applied. This is followed with Ronan Japan paint in Drop Black. These are all brushed on. After the Japan is dry the chamfer on the sight edge is oil gilded and after 24 hours or so lightly burnished (4/0 steel wool) and sealed with wax free shellac. The technique I use to expose the red base coat is to use Liberon wax with a combination of 4/0 steel wool and/or cheesecloth. It’s important to have a few test pieces which I always make; they are finished the exact same way the frame is. Since my shop isn’t climate controlled it’s good to have them to experiment on. Generally I’ll use the steelwool (Liberon oil free) in a circular motion on wider areas and the cheesecloth on smaller ones. It’s a judgement call of where and how much of the base coat I expose. I imagine where the frame may have been handled the most and remove what I think is right. The trickiest areas are sharp edges but if worse comes to worse, a black sharpie is your friend!

This is the design that I will be talking about and sharing my technique with you. As with the majority of my work the frame is for a painting by my wife, Diane Eugster. I like to take inspiration from her work to do any carving, in this case there was a tree in her painting so leaves seemed appropriate. I want the frame to be contemporary and impressionistic so the carve needs to be subtle; not loud and gold leafed! Diane likes the viewer to discover things in her paintings and I’d like my frame to be the same. The carve is fairly low relief, around 1/8″. My goal is for the background to have some texture so that the viewer knows it was hand carved rather than made using CNC. The transition from the carved area to the rest of the frame needs to be as gradual as I can make it.

Before I talk about carving just a brief explanation of how I create my closed corner frames. They begin with 5/4, rough Basswood. Most of the time I use what I call my 15° profile so it will accommodate a stretched canvas. I lucked out on this piece of Basswood, it was actually 6/4 so my 15° profile method wasn’t needed to fit the canvas. If you’re unfamiliar with that method and are interested in it here’s a LINK to that post. After the machine work is completed I always use my bronze smooth plane to eliminate any marks left by the planer. For this profile 3/16″ beads were plowed to leave a 2″ wide area for the carving. Sight edge has a slight chamfer and is rabbeted to accept the canvas. Once the profile is complete the profile is mitered and assembled using biscuits. Frames are glued and clamped and allowed to dry overnight before any other work begins.

I use the internet to find my designs and size/modify them until they are what I’m after. After drawing them out, the pattern is glued to a piece of plastic recycled from salad containers. The pattern is then cut out with chisels that match the design as closely as possible. I note the chisels used on a separate piece of paper. The piece that is cut out can sometimes be used as well to locate any interior features like the spaces between the leaves. I want to be consistent on each corner of the frame.

What I like about making the salad container pattern is that it is reversible and can be used on both the left and right sides of the frame. It’s stiff enough to guide the pencil but also flexible enough to conform to the profile if needed. The paper you see has the design enlarged and flipped so I can annotate chisels used for either side of the frame. This takes a bit more time but well worth reducing the chance of making an error when you try to flip the design and its orientation from left to right — you can probably imagine how I figured that out!

This may seem like overkill and I don’t always find the need to do it. Since there are 4 corners and 8 hopefully similar designs it’s very easy to get confused and …. one wrong chisel cut is all it takes to mess things up! To me it’s worth the time to at least flip the pattern in a Pages program so that I have a left and right to look at, believe me; when you are bent over the bench and it’s 105° in the shop the mind gets a bit fuzzy. Sometimes I’ll write notes on the wood too. After I’ve done two of the corners most of it is in my memory but still; better safe than sorry! Without a doubt, there are some minor mistakes you make that are easy to conceal but in my experience these precautions save time and possible confusion in the long run.

The way I prefer to carve is to first outline the design with the appropriate chisel. I use a a small, 11oz. brass mallet for that initial outline. That is followed up by grounding the design out, generally I only use a #2/5 and start 1/4″ +/- from the outline. Next the chisels are used to outline again but this time only with hand pressure, going all the way around the design. On the second round of grounding out I’ll use the widest #2 , #3, or whatever will work to get the area around the design about 1/8″ deep. The reason I prefer my outlining technique over using a V-chisel is the limited space and grain changes especially by the miter. For me it’s too easy to slip with the V-chisel in tight areas, especially between leaves. Keep in mind that a picture frame; unlike carving a piece of wood that can be repositioned to accommodate grain direction, can only be accessed from the outside edge of the frame.

There’s a lot of wood that needs to be removed at the miter so using the widest chisel that fits is a wise choice. Small fishtail chisels and spoons are helpful as well. I try to get an all around depth of 1/8″. The areas between leaves require small tools, one of my favorites for that is a small Pfeil spoon gauge #2a/3 which allows me to almost “pluck” the insides out after they’re outlined. Chiseling is followed by lightly sanding with 220 grit paper. The leaves and stems are modeled, separated , etc. until I’m satisfied with the overall look of the frame. Wood is a living thing and subject to changes in how it works, cuts, smooths, etc. More often than I’d like to think it’ll happen that one side of the miter works like butter and the other side feels like it’s made of granite!

Here is the completed work. The painting is oil on stretched canvas and measures 20″ x 20″. For the finish I used Real Milk Paint from RMP Finishes. It’s a product I’ve been using for quite some time and I really like it. This is their Arabian Black topcoated with dewaxed Platinum shellac. What I like about it is that it comes in a powder so there’s no waste. Two ounces of powder, mixed with water is plenty for a frame of this size. I apply it with a foam brush and use Mirlon 1500 and 2500 pads between coats to smooth it out. The shellac is sprayed on with a mini airbrush from NoName this little gun will put down a 3″ wide pattern so is perfect for my frames. I allow the shellac to fully cure for about a week and then use a short, stipple brush and rottenstone to reduce the natural gloss of the shellac. The final step is an application of Liberon Black Bison neutral wax.

I realize this got a little bit long winded (no surprise!) but if you were able to get some information from it I’d appreciate hearing from you. Many times I’ve mentioned how my blogs serve to continue my teaching career and sharing but also to remind myself down the road the many ways I’ve conquered a challenge in my woodworking — John