I decided to make a picture frame for someone special this Christmas. I have heard that woodworking is an exercise of precision. I was up for a precision tasks, as I consider myself pretty experienced with tools, and I have been doing more CAD on the side at work. Surely this would be a quick and easy job!
What a famous set of last words.
First, I needed to obtain a flat work surface while spending minimal effort and money. Ignoring sale flyers for new workbenches and home videos for quick and easy torsion boxes (they are never quick nor easy). I gutted a guillotine-style paper cutter from Surplus to expose a hefty maple board with a convenient 1cm grid. It wasn’t as flat as I was expecting, but it got the job done.
Next, I needed to come up a way to reliably clamp long pieces of wood to this surface while running a router. Dog clamps seemed like a viable choice. I roughed out holes with a spade bit, then cleaned up the edges and filleted the corners with my router (this also served as a good training period for me to get comfortable handling the router).
I used 1" square stock from the hardware store, as it was relatively inexpensive for hardwood and already S4S milled. I simply had to cut my stock to length, then route a rabbet through the inside edge of the frame to hold the clear acrylic, photo, and backing. If this is your first time making a picture frame, I suggest buying twice the amount of wood you need.
I decided to mate the pieces together using half-lap joints. This is commonly done using a table saw and a dado blade. It was deceivingly hard to accomplish this with nothing more than my router’s edge guide. The ends of the joints did not sit flush, but I was able to clean up the edges after gluing.
Given that this was a 24x48 frame, I had to mount the entire frame diagonally over my work surface for the dog clamps to reach all four sides.
After some final sanding, a quick application of paste wax, and hammering in of hardware, the frame was finished. The gift was well received!