Shopsmith Forums

I took a project and its different than anything I've done before thus I'm looking for thoughts and suggestions about how to proceed.

My customer lost her grandparents who were farmers. In the settlement of their estate the property went on the auction block and the buyer choose to tear down the house and barn. As a last minute thought she decided she'd 'salvage' some barn pieces for a memento. She asked me to make 3 - 5 x 7 picture frames from this - one for her and one each for her two siblings.

I've made my share of picture frames but they were always with nice stock, straight with parallel edges. Even if it was re-purposed it's been good stock.

As you can see I've begun to layout how I can get the pieces I need. To be successful I need to keep as much of the "natural" edge as I can. The two things I'm most concerned about is not having a nice edge to place against a fence to cut miters and having the corners reasonably meet up.

Thanks for reading and giving this some thought.
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Maybe use good quality carpet tape to affix the barn wood to square straight stock during machining. BTW, your attached pictures didn't work for some reason.

You might also think about a non-mitered frame.

Here is one we have in our house, non-mitered, which I'd made:

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I have been up against this problem once before and the only solution I could come up with works pretty well. This may be difficult to describe but here goes. After you do the layout which you have already done draw a reference line on the back of each piece roughly 1 inch in from what will be the inside edge of the frame. Screw a piece of straight would to that line leaving the one inch space on the inside and back of the wood. Use short enough screws to not penetrate the front side of the wood. Now each piece has a reference point to base the miter on. Now rip a piece of wood from the same stock you ripped the original straight edge from that is roughly 1.5 inches wide and as long as your longest piece of picture frame. Put this piece up against the miter fence. You can now push the barnwood piece up against the 1.5 inch piece with the reference board down on the table. At this point your barnwood piece will be about 1/2 inch away from the fence but perfectly aligned for the miter. Using this method the actual inside and outside edge of the frame can be as irregular as you want it. Try to make the wood as close to the same width as you can at the place where the miter will occur. You can also use the reference board to router the rabbit for the glass and picture by using a guide bushing plate and run it along the reference board. Then just remove the reference boards and assemble the frames. Hope this helps. Let me know if you need more explanation.
Paul

I usually rip them and get a flat straight edge for the inside edges.Here are a few I made.The unmitered corners work and look good too.

I wanted to thank everyone for your comments and suggestions. I found them helpful. It’s great to be part of such a helpful group.

Here are pics of the project and steps. I decided a half-lap joint fit the rustic nature of the project better than miters. Given that the object was to preserve and show as much of the barn wood I decided to make the sides 3”.

I removed the nails and laid out the rough pieces on the back side of the stock. I used a cross cut sled to rough cross cut all the pieces. I used the straightest edge of each piece to register against the back of the sled.

Next, I marked the stock for a 3.125” rip and used the sled pictured to rip the stock preserving one original edge, to be on the outside of the picture frames when completed and the straight cut edge could be marked and be the reference edge when cutting the half-lap joints. I cut a 4.5” x 5.5” gauge that would be the open area of the frames and could then lay out the four pieces of each frame to a) trim to final length and b) to mark for the joinery.

Cut the joints creeping up on the fit. (The SS gauge that allows you to make tiny incremental changes to the table height worked great!) I cut the .25 x .312 rabbit on the router table. Glued it all together. On all the cut edges I used a couple of things to “age” the wood. I made a batch of white vinegar and steel wool. This darkens the wood but doesn’t gray it. So I mixed up a bit of acrylic paint to make a gray and wipes it on with a damp rag. You can see the inside edge with the fresh rabbit next to the “aged” stock. I put the nails back in as I completed the project. Thanks again to all who offered suggestions.

Well done, should last beautifully another 100 years!

Nice job !