The "Lancaster Picture Framing Amazes A Customer" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Had just caught up with most of the jobs at Grebinger Gallery where I work part-time for a former student of mine who opened his mat and frame shop about 30 years ago.  We have been busy recently making mats and frames for high school and college diplomas for just about every and any school in the USA.  Just when I thought I was done, Keith brings this large piece of mat board that held a variety of items on it to show me my next assignment.  The project was a collection of Indian relics from along the Susquehanna River which is the biggest river along the east coast which flows through Pennsylvania into the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.  The majority of the items the customer brought in for matting and framing were relics from the Susquehannock Indians.  The Susquehanna Indians lived in nearby Manor Township between 1575 and 1763.  The area along the river where most of the Indians lived was known as Washington Boro.  The artifacts that he bought to the gallery were found prior to the sanitary sewer extension that occurred in Washington Boro in the late 1990s.  The job was perhaps one of the most challenging projects that I have worked on during the 20 plus years I have been working at Grebinger Gallery.  The following photographs will give you an idea what I had to do in order to complete the project for the customers.  I may have missed taking a photo or two, but I believe you can still understand what was involved in this project.

These are the items to be matted and framed.  The two large rocks made it challenging since we would need a large  rather large frame to accommodate the thickness, as well as the weight of the rocks.  Arrowheads, a bracelet, a small rock with score lines on it and printed pages were part of the job.  Keith and I decided that wooden framing pieces would work best to help hold the rocks in place.  The mat that the customer selected is under the pieces.  Click on images to enlarge them.

The frame was a 3" high frame which I cut, glued and placed metal pieces in the corners for extra support.  After placing Museum glass in the frame, I placed foam board pieces with the same mat attached along the side of the project to hold the glass in place.

I once again placed everything in position so I could begin to attach them.  First I glued and screwed the two pieces of framing material to the bottom mat.  They were allowed to dry before I continued.  

To hold the rocks in place we used a netting similar to the veil from a wedding dress.  It is strong and easy to work with.  I had to cut lines above the frames in which I forced the netting through to the back.  To hold the netting in place we used a glue gun and applied an adequate amount of glue to hold the netting in place so the rock wouldn't move.  After doing both rocks, I was ready for the next step.

This shows pulling the netting tight on the back so I could use the hot glue gun.  The two screws you see are holding the framing piece in place.  That framing piece is what I sat the rocks on when gluing.

Here you can see the two rocks have been glued in place.  All the buttons you see were the arrowheads that I attached in place on the front side.  I used clear fishing line to place around the rocks and arrowheads and ran through a single hole I drilled with a small drill bit.  When I pulled the fishing line tight, I threaded the two ends of fishing line through the holes in a button so I could pull them tight and tie them.  As you can see by all the buttons, it took a considerable amount of time to accomplish this step.  You will also notice that to hold it in place I had to use metal tabs along the edge of the job.  I couldn't place the matting inside the frame since the rocks were too thick to allow me to do so.

Here I have attached the backing paper to keep dust and parasites away from the job.  This backing paper needs to be trimmed and the screw eyes placed along the sides to hold the picture wire.

After attaching the wire I placed the logo for the gallery on the back.

The final result!  The two printed items were attached to a piece of black foam board and trimmed before gluing them to the rear mat board.  If you struggle, you can barely see the fishing line, but most people will not see it if they are just looking at the final job.  The project weighted about 10 pounds when finished and looked great!