What is your favorite "Framing Gadget" ?

[Mike Labbe]

What tools or gadgets do you use in the shop?

Photos welcome!

 

[Linda Wassell MCPF]

This is my favorite tool for designing and drawing out designs for French matting. It is called an X-Acto Mat marker. Unfortunately, it has been discontinued about 10+ years ago but still may be found in older shops--they were originally designed to mark mat boarders before modern straight-line mat cutters were common.
The design is actually similar to a carpenters scribe. The difference is with this, you can fit a pencil--a scribe is fit with a sharp pin that "scores" a line into wood. It is true that a scribe can be worked to fit a pencil but it is not as light or convenient as this tool.

If you find that you do have one, it is handy if you do hand designing, trimming, many little jobs. And, if you don't have a use for it, call me--lets talk!!!

--Linda

 

[Russ Wood]

I don't have a picture but one of my often used tools is a box of 4 inch by 4 inch Samples of mat decorations.

Whenever I do a wrapped bevel, a pastel panel, a painted panel or bevel, I am now adding a sample on a piece of mat board; on the back I have the recipe. The box includes 2, 4, 8, and 12 ply samples.
I'm also starting to include ink line samples.

 

[Les Martin. MCPF]

It's not a gadget like that.

Every since I read your question I've been thinking about "four oh" steel wool. Now that black moulding is back this stuff has saved me hundreds of feet of scuffed, shinner moulding and any shop without it has to be hurting. Any flat moulding finish can be buffed with it and finger prints are gone with the same stuff. I know 0000 steel wool is not new but if you don't have it handy and are working with flat color finishes give it a try. PS: works some times on aluminum mouldings, too.

 

[Ormond Williams MCPF]

I know 0000 steel wool is not new but if you don't have it handy and are working with flat color finishes give it a try. PS: works some times on aluminum mouldings, too.

It's also great for cleaning stubborn marks from regular glass, especially paint on the edges of used glass!

 

[Mike Labbe]

Show and Tell

Bumped up this interesting discussion, for the benefit of the framers just joining us.

Any other gadgets out there that make your job easier?

 

[Rick Granick]

Although not the sexiest, one of the most useful accessories I have in the shop is a block of very dense rubber about 2" square and about 1/2" thick. It adapts my (VN2+1) v-nailer's holddown clamp to just about any profile of moulding imaginable. Being flexible, it spreads the force out to avoid denting the moulding. It's probably similar in consistency to what I think Cassese uses on their clamps.
Rick

Another really simple but useful tool is this pallette knife.

Its blade starts out thin at the end, and gets a little thicker as it goes up. It is perfect for dressing slots in matboard for pass-thru hinges.

 

[Jerry Feig CPF]

" C-thru rulers"
They are clear with red grids over the surface for assisting in the alignment of the art.

 

[Gregory K. Norris CPF]

Jerry, that is the most useful tools in my shop. I went straight to the fabric store to get one after Ellen Collins showed me one. How I framed over 15 years without one I wonder every time I pull it out, which is several times a week.

 

[Jim Miller MCPF GCF]

I've been using those C-Thru rulers since I started framing in 1988. Funny you should mention Ellen Collins - the last batch I ordered was from her store, Howard's Art Supplies, when we visited there last year.

My all-time favorite gadget is the quintessential single-edge razor blade. A very useful tool. We don't need a picture of that, do we?