Greene & Greene picture frame

[Bill Carey]

After the LOML finished her 5 day Art Glass class at Marc Adams School (taught by John Hamm - a VERY skilled guy) she got a certificate that I wanted to frame for her. Since she fell in love with the G&G glass, I figured a G&G frame would be appropriate. So I picked this:
389249
Not having any idea what size the frame was, I set the horizontal inside dimension to 10 1/2" and scaled the rest of the frame. I liked the proportions.
389250
Today I found a walnut board I liked, milled the pieces, mortised and tenoned them, and taking the advice of Darrel Peart, used a block plane and sand paper to round over. And I agree with him: gives a subtle different look than routing the round overs. Made a template for the top rail cloud lifts, and here we are.
389254
The top has not been rounded yet - want to wait until the routing is done. At this point I realized I really liked this frame and would be making more of them so I wanted a routing template that I could re-use. The top and bottom are 3/4", while the sides are 5/8" which gives that depth that I think is really cool. So this is what I came up with:
389263 389264
So once the frame is glued up, I can clamp both templates in place and do the routing. The 3/4" mdf on the bottom of the template fits snugly between the "ears" of the frame, and registers the template on the side rails.

So now the questions: as you can see, the mdf between the 2 openings in the templates is pretty thin. Will a wood hardener, Like Minwax or PC Petrifier help make the mdf a bit stronger, or will it just make it more brittle and likely to break? Next, the ebony will be 1/8" thick and I'm worried about test fitting it and then having it break when I try to remove it. My plan is to make duplicates, or at least leave the tool setups alone until I'm done. Also wondering if you wise, Yoda like folks have any advice on the process of breaking the edges of the ebony before final assembly, besides sand gently, very gently. Also planning on using glaziers point to mount the backing in the frame unless you have another suggestion. Back of the frame has not been rabbited yet for the glass, so there are possibilities.

Thanks for any and all suggestions, kids.

[Robert Cherry]

Bill- nice looking frame. I apply a slight chamfer to the back of the ebony splines on the belt sander. For the plugs I use Darrell’s method of a sharp chisel to chamfer the back edges.

[glenn bradley]

I would cut a "plug" to fit into the opening I was not using and then move it over for the second cut. This will solve your problem of the delicate material between the slots that will be under stress during the operation. I do similar things when mortising for square plugs on delicate fingers of drawers and such. In that operation I can clamp the proud finger.

389270

In your operation you will fill the unused void and then switch to make the second slot.

[Gary Radice]

What I have done for test fitting splines is to mill the same size slot on a piece of scrap (same species as the final project). Measure the width with a dial calipers. If it is nominally 1/8 then the slot will probably be a few thou larger (let's say 0.128 as an example). Then plane a test piece of ebony to about 10 thou wider than that: 0.138. This piece doesn't have to be a full spline, just long one long enough to get a valid test.

To get the back bevel I just put a piece of sandpaper on the bench and swipe the ebony on a few times. The angle isn't critical. Then test fit the scrap pieces together. Refine the ebony thickness as necessary. It should be tight fit so that you compress the edges of the walnut.

Your intuition is correct that you DON'T want to have to pry the thin ebony out of your final piece, since you risk both breaking the spine and dinging the walnut.

For breaking the edges, I've done it by hand sanding and I've done it by using a wide thumbnail cutter on a small shaper. I'm not very good at making jigs for holding such small pieces and the shaper kinda-sorta worked but in the end I just did most of mine by hand. You can make a small gauge out of cardboard to test that you are getting the round over consistent. You could also try a scratch stock. I haven't used on on ebony so I don't know how well that works, but I may give it a try soon. I have to make splines today, in fact.

[Bill Carey]

Well, finally finished the frame. Too many projects going on. And I did make a test fit piece to get the splines right. Made a small jig to hold the splines and got them to right thickness with a block plane. I puzzled over how to make a jig to hold such small pieces, then decided to hand cut them and sand to shape. Bit of work, but it was actually kinda fun. Also made a small "vice" out of a scrap of oak to hold them while I shaped em.
Here's some pics.
390010390011

[Robert Cherry]

I’m a little late with this, but perhaps this will help for the next project. Here is how I shape my G&G splines. This particular jig was for a curved spline along the edge of an elliptical table. The MDF piece attached to the top is the pattern and rides on the router bearing. Basically the jig is just two pieces of 3/4” plywood with a rabbet along one edge, screwed together. I make the rabbet a bit smaller than the piece I’m holding so it gets a tight grip on the ebony. Slip the ebony blank in place, tighten the screws and route- pretty basic but works like a charm. The hardest part is getting the router bit height set exactly right.

390012390013

[Bill Carey]

Hi Robert. IvI' used a similar technique to make parts but for this the ebony was so small, and I needed only 8 PC's, that I figured hell with it and made them by hand. If I make more of the frames I'll make a jig for sure .