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Thumbnail Join Wood Frame Part 2


I take this, set it out of my way. Slide these two things back perfectly. Once again, long in front of me, short to my right because I have that same way on that one that I just did. Start this process again. Get my piece of paper underneath here, my spacer up underneath this joint, go through the whole thing again.

Looks like I'm going to have a good joint here. Put some glue on this face, all right. Kleenex, a wonderful thing to have around. Hand's going to clamp this together again, I see that joint go together. Those holes match up perfectly. I'm going to turn this a little bit so you can see better this time hopefully.

I broke my seal, didn't like doing that, but I did. I'm going to put just a little more glue on here, dab that in. This style of frame, the first layer that's holding this frame together for you is the glue. These wedges are wonderful, but they're not your first line of hold in this joint.

As wood can expand and contract over time, when temperatures get hot in the summer and cold in the winter, wood expands and contracts. If this wood expands and contracts so much that these wedges got loose, that glue is what's holding it first. That's why we glue and thumbnail here.

Knock that down in there, and I'm ready to go again with my little piece of metal here. I guess another thing I do when I do this is I actually put pressure with my forearm, obviously not off the table here, my forearm kind of helps support myself on this edge and I drive the

I don't know if you heard that change, but as you do more of these you can hear that change of the sound when that wedge bottoms out in there. Dig some of that glue out of my corner. Once again, I'm going to do my flip without putting pressure on that joint. I'm going to pull this up, no pressure is being applied, and I just fold her right over. This time, I was lucky enough to have no real height differences at all on that. I don't have to go through that little bit of a scary process of rocking that joint. I'm going to fold it back over.

When I move this now, if this is big enough, sometimes it's nice to have two people, one on either end even move these joints. The way I'm going to move this is, I want to get both my hands underneath this. I'm assuming this is really large, so it's not that big of deal when they're small. I'm holding it perfectly underneath here, and I'm going to lift it over, not putting any undue stresses on that joint. I'm going to set it down easy with my new space here.

This one is sitting out here on the edge, there's no pressure being applied if I slide this around. If I slide it on the back it's not going to hurt anything, except be cautious of your kitchen floor or tabletop or whatever. I'm going to do the same thing, I'm going to flip this over letting one rest on the table all the time. Get my hands underneath this, no pressures on that joint. I'm going to roll it around and get it to where I have these two joints together.

Now, just going on to the third joint here. It looks like I'm going to have a nice tight joint. There's something I'd like to explain here, and on some big, fat molding sometimes what happens is that, I'm going to assume this joint's together right here. If I look over at this opposite joint, and if I hold this one together nice and tight, but that one looked like that on the far side while I put this joint together tight, I would wait at least 10 hours before I did that joint.

I would let this joint completely dry, get my wedges in there, let the glue dry and everything seat up on all three of these joints. If I don't, if I immediately go over and I do this joint on this side, I'm going to put pressure here. Even though this is held in a very good system, it's going to open that up just slightly and I'm going to get a little gap here. Don't need to do that, because this glue is going to hold nicely to where I can just let that go for a good 10 hours like I say. Push that over when I go to this last joint hours later, this joint will be perfect, that joint will be perfect. You'll have a much prettier frame even to go.

This one actually looks like we did a magnificent job, we cut this absolutely perfect. In our regard, our defense, it's not always that it's our fault if you get that gap there. It's just the way wood works, things can bend and twist. Anyway, since I know I'm going to do both of these joints at once, I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to pull this joint straight up. Opens up this corner for me so I can get glue on it. At the same time, this corner for glue.

I know you probably can't see me up here, but I'm putting glue on this joint just like I did before. Got some glue on this joint up here, let that one fall down for a second. I'm going to roll this one up. Still no pressures being applied to that joint whatsoever because I'm letting everything sit on the ground down there. Plant some glue on this joint, got a little bit too much here so I'm just going to do a transfer onto this one with my finger.

Got good glue joints, clean my fingers up, good to go onto the third joint here. Got a good seat, push that down. One thing you can do is you can actually start with trying to put little pressures here and start with the back being perfectly flat, which a lot of times will make the front perfectly flat if the profiles are really good and strong.

I start with my front one, get it started, push that down in. Same thing with the back. Get my spacer. Now to do this one, I'm just going to make the same flip I did before. I'm just going to let this whole side of the frame dangle over here. I'm just going to pull this up, rotate it over. Slide it back over here, clean up that joint.

I have a little bit of a heights difference here, so I'm going to do this one thing again. Left hand I put underneath the frame, right hand I put on top of the frame. Pushing together right here, and I'm going to ever so slightly try to rock that back. Please, please be careful here or skip this step. It's really easy to blow a frame apart right here and that's never a good thing.

Lots of times they'll be at good enough for you, as you get a little more comfortable with doing frames this way you can keep doing them, adding a little bit more each time. That looks perfect. I'm going to slide this right around.

This is probably one of the scariest corners that you have because if you were to actually, if this is a really long frame and I let this, I'm supporting it here, but if I let this come off the table and I let that fall; boom, all that weight of this rail is going to want to pull a ton on these two joints.

You have to be cautious with this final joint here. I'm going to go ahead and slide it to where I can get a hold of it, and I'm going to pinch it good and tight. I'm going to go ahead and just rotate this over, pinching that good, and not letting it sway. I'm down on its back again, I'm safe.

I'm going to get my spacer and my board underneath here. Lift this up, pinching it good here so they're staying the same heights all the time here. My spacer underneath this joint. I already put a little glue in there, but I'm just going to ever so slightly pull this apart, put a little more glue in there, kind of pinch that together. We're going to put that together, do that a few times. I know I got some good glue in there, I can see down in this joint that I got a good glue amount in there.

When I finally get it good and seated, I'm going to pull it in tight. Go for my wedges again. I'm still putting a lot of pressure on here, and I'm squeezing this joint together pretty hard with my hand here, and really locking this joint down before I put these wedges in. Making sure that it's like a puzzle, that each side, those two holes match really well on both sides.

My little piece of metal here, drive those down. Right there, sound change. Take out my holes out of here, my glue out of here, out of the holes. Much safer frame now. Don't want to put any undue stresses on here, but now that this frame has all four of these corners, it's a really pretty safe frame to move and manipulate around. If you get a really skinny frame, do have caution with it, let it dry good.

Before I were to go on and fit this piece or go the rest of the way if I had frames and glass or a canvas, I would probably let to try and let this sit for a good couple of hours, let all that glue dry. You're just going to be a lot safer having all the glue, even in the corners, will dry up. Even if there's a little bit there, it doesn't actually get on your canvas even or your glass, or whatever. Let it dry a couple hours.

You have a perfect frame put together by you. Enjoy, have a great day.