It’s been a long time since I added anything to my blog page, so today I thought I’d write a short piece about a very useful tool I’ve just purchased. It’s a framing tab gun which drives in tabs like the little tabs you get on ready made frames. This particular project is an entry for this years ‘Golden Brush’ award at my local art group.
I started out by reclaiming an old frame I picked up at a car boot sale last year for a couple of quid. there was a completed jigsaw in the frame, which was promptly dumped. I then set about re-sizing the frame to suit my watercolour. I took about 3″ out of the length and about 2″ out of the height and re-cut the glass to suit.
After trimming the backboard and cutting a mount to size I then replaced all the old fixings (which were rusty panel pins) with this new gadget. I was very impressed with the ease of use and the fact that the new tabs are perfectly flat, something which is impossible with a ready made frame. When you bend the pins you can never get them perfectly flat again. So… job done. I’ve yet to venture into actually making any frame from scratch, but I have all the necessary tools to do this now. I just need to source a local glazing place for the glass. Here’s some pictures of the gun and the finished framed painting.
Happy painting everyone
Pete
Pete Batho Artist 