More work on the Cosmonaut frame today. The hard part of cutting the beading, hard because I don't have a mitre saw so must do these complex angles and measurements by hand. I first made a paper template of each corner, then did a test cut of the beading. Marking it from the top, rounded, edge was nearly impossible, so I quickly abandoned that idea and decided to mark the flat base. This meant making a sort of cradle on my desk from blu-tak to hold the long beading in place while I hand-sawed the angle with a coping saw. A small Japanese pull saw would have been more useful I think, but I don't have one. The blade had to be a fine-tooth metal blade, as the wood blades were too coarse.
Then it was a matter of sanding the angle to the correct slope, again by hand. A circular 90 degree sanding table would have made this easy, but I don't have one and it seems excessive to buy one for one frame. Still, a mitre saw and these tools are tempting. Of course, I don't really have room for those. I must fit my life's possessions in two rooms. My studio is my bedroom.
The beading fitted reasonably well and looked rather nice, especially pleased with the smoothness and gloss:
It looks and feels as smooth and nice as any commercial framing, which is my key lesson of this. My frames at first were knocked together with minimal care, the simplest way to display the paintings, but have gradually increased in complexity and beauty. I can clearly see the pyramid of artisanship which leads to good quality frames and am aspiring towards the best, rather than considering these an afterthought. I'm sure that with a 3D printer I could make frames as good as Frinton's, with lacquered, solid wood sides and custom embellishments. Of course, this would take me as long, if not longer, than painting, with far less artistic merit other than an exposition of craft skills. I have no plans to make frames for other artists for this reason.
These past two days have been really tiring, working on this triangle frame, which like the painting itself is a cross between my skills of now and my skills of 2010. My next job on this work is to scan/photograph the finished painting.
