A few weeks ago I came across a photo on Paul Sellers blog that struck me. Near the end of the post he had a photo of a stack of picture frames and mentioned that it was a new design he had created. They were simple picture frames with what looked like half-lapped corners with a twist.
“You might think from looking that you know how these go together but you don’t.” How unbelievably prescient.
I took a few minutes to try to decode the joinery. When it came to me I realised it is quite simple, and clever. One of the visible end grain pieces was definitely narrower than the piece it came from, and the half lap was not 50/50 meaning one side of the joint was cut thicker than the other.
For the narrow end grain, I thought that’s just a clever way to hide the rebate. Rip down to take the rebate itself off the section to be joined, then that becomes the new shoulder line for the joining half-lap piece – where the half lap should span the width of the piece, it’s now narrower after removing the section with the rebate. Now we can just treat this as a normal half-lap and this also hides the rebate on the joining piece.
About the thickness not being 50/50 like it usually would for a half lap, I chalked this up to a design choice with maybe a hidden purpose; maybe the half-lap is cut to the depth of the rebate. I decided to do the same and went for a 2/3rds to 1/3rd half lap.
After clinical dissection, off I went to replicate this picture frame for a 4×6 photo. Let’s call it a prototype since I was more focused on completing the process and building the frame than absolute perfection in the design and construction.
I ripped four strips of cherry to width and dimensioned them. The dimensions aren’t that important; I just squared up the four faces and shot one end.
Once they were squared up I oriented the pieces and chose my show faces. I ran a ¼” x ¼” rebate on the inside to house the glass, picture etc – with my Paul Sellers rebate plane no less. The quarter by quarter rebate was very small and not ideal but again this is more a prototype so I wasn’t too concerned with the minute details. If I were doing it again I would make it a lot deeper so the picture sits closer to the face of the frame. You also have to choose which pieces span the full length of the face of the frame; the top and bottom or the sides. I chose the top and bottom for a 4×6 frame. Whichever will span the full length is a regular half-lap and the pieces that will go on the underside will have the rebate ripped off.
The first corner was a bit tricky but my process eventually looked like:
- Mark the length of the half-lap from the thickness of the adjoining piece
- Mark out and rip off the rebate from the piece that will be on the underside
- Now treat it as a normal half-lap. Take the material off the top, down to the shoulder line.
- Mark the joining piece half lap, using the new width of the bottom piece.
My first attempt was a bit sloppy but even over four corners I improved each time.
It was around this point in the project that I realised something. I went back to look at the photo I was working off; I had taken a photo on my phone of the picture on Paul’s blog. I took a closer look and spotted something strange.
Each piece had different grain running in different directions.
Wait. Were these not solid pieces with a rabbet run in the back?
I zoom in: yep, definitely two pieces to each side.
And in the back I can see it’s a deep “faux” rebate made by laminating two pieces. Paul’s frames were made from 8 pieces each, overlapping at the corners (albeit in the same sense that I deduced).
I was completely wrong! I decoded this frame from a complete misunderstanding, and completely wrong.
Paul called it.
But it still works, and I had come this far so I soldiered on.
I fitted all four corners and at this stage it was still extremely rough. There is some math to do to calculate the length of sides and joinery location, taking into account the rebate for the size of picture it should fit. I left some pieces long to be trimmed up in the end and because of miscalculation in the half lap depth the faces were very uneven front and back, but this could all be levelled off after glue-up.
I glued it up with a clamp on each joint then one from top to bottom and left to right, and checked to make sure it’s all square. After it had dried I trimmed the excess off the corners, planed the long edges flush then planed the faces flush. I added a small chamfer on all the edges including the internal ones and inside used the glass and backing board from an old frame we weren’t using.
I’m happy with how it turned out, and with the process. I quite like the design of this frame – despite being a mistake – and will make more at a point. I’ve avoided picture frames because a) miters are a lot of work to get absolutely perfect with hand tools and b) I didn’t have a formula for a simple corner joint that hides the rebate. But now I do. It’s simple, only four pieces, with a lot of room for decorative touches to make it look less plain. This is a mistake I’m happy I made
And what of Paul’s picture frame? Funnily enough soon after I made my frame he released his design as a project series on Woodworking Masterclasses and it’s a brilliant design with some interesting choices. It’s well worth a watch and clear that I didn’t deduce even half the story from one photo!
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