• home
• about us
• lewes shop
• frames
• the workshop
• other services
• contact

Craftsmanship

Our large workshop allows us to carry a stock of materials, ready for every framing challenge.

The workshop

Cutting Frames.
Our combined pneumatic and hydraulic mitre saw gives us the most perfect mitre possible in the industry.
It has independent dust extraction and can cut mouldings up to 180mm wide,
excellent for chopping very wide hardwoods wheras a standard machine would not be man enough.

Joining Frames.
Frames are joined using wood glue and underpinned with a pneumatic pinner.

Sanding Frames.
The preparation of the plain wood frames for hand finishes is very labour intensive,
starting with wetting the frame to raise the grain, then requiring several stages of sanding, we now have
a wonderfully effective extraction sustem which cuts down hugely the dust created,
helpful both to the final finish of the frame and to the air we breathe.

Paint Finishes.
Once we are happy that we have a beautifully sanded frame,
(taking great care not to smooth off the delicate ridges and corners that are so important to the
final look of the frame); there is a huge range of finishes that can be applied to make the finished piece unique and
perfectly suited to the artwork it is destined to surround.

For painting frames we use a lovely range of hand made chalk based paints, created using a fabulous
selection of pigments, and giving us an infinate choice of colours.

We tend to mix up each colour specifically for each individual job we are working on.
The beauty of having a frame hand finished especially for your painting, photo,etc is that we can achieve the precise
tone that will bring it to life and are not limited to a small range of samples,combined with the wide range of profiles we offer it makes our selection linitless and utterly flexable.

Paints can be combined with gilding or silvering in both the traditional ways seen in classic framing styles, perfect for oils,
mirrors and even extremly successful on contempory artworks, but gilding can be used in more modern and unexpected ways.
For example appliing gold leaf to the face of a contempory square frame leaving the sides in a sharp black or white
can look really striking, equally the reverse laying leaf only onto the sides so that it is just glimpsed is a subltle and stylish effect.
It is exciting to come up with a whole new take on a moulding profile that we have become familiar with in another finish.

Waxing and varnishes.
Once a frame has its paint and leaf we also use a variety of final finishes to produce all sorts of effects to complete and protect the frame.

There are a huge number of products available and through a great deal of experimentaion and trial and error we really got to understand our techniques and how to use them to best effect.