How to Make Picture Frames

Ron's friend Hugh Morton down at Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina sent Ron a photo of one of the bears at the park he had visited. Ron was going to take the photograph down to a frame shop to have it professionally framed, but then he got a great idea. Making a custom frame would be a perfect workshop project.

Click Here For a list of what you will need in order to complete this project.

Click here to watch a video of this project.

1. Rip cut wood:

• Ron built his frame out of poplar that he picked up at the local home improvement center. For this project he used three different thicknesses: ¾ inch, ½ inch, and ¼ inch.

• The first thing Ron wanted to do was rip, or length cut, the poplar pieces down to the proper width.

• To round over the first piece of wood, Ron used a router bit called a round over bit.

• He mounted the bit into the router, which was mounted onto the router table.

• Ron used a standard router, clamped upside down underneath the table.

• Ordinarily when working with a router, Ron would move the router over the wood, but since he was using a router table, he passed the wood over the router.

3. Gluing:

• The first piece of wood Ron routed would form the base of the molding that he was in the process of creating to build his picture frame.

• On top of this base he stacked a smaller piece of lumber that was half-inch thick.

• Ron applied wood glue to the bottom of the second piece of wood.

• It was important to spread the glue evenly so he used a glue spreader to create an even film.

• With the glue on the wood, Ron placed it on top of the first piece. Ron was careful to make the two wood pieces flush along the back.

• Ron used several spring clamps positioning them every few inches to hold the wood firmly together while the glue dried.

• While the first piece was drying, Ron made several more just like it.

4. More routing and gluing:

• Once the glue was dry, Ron removed the clamps.

• To add design interest, Ron removed the small edge of wood that stuck out from the second piece he had added.

• The new detail would create a smooth s-curve in the wood.