Broken Rebate

This antique slip (re-gilded at some point with metal leaf) has been damaged during shipping, pressure on the back of the painting has caused the rebate (rabbet) to split. 

Rebate and repairs continued...

This is the second Louis XIV frame that I am working on at the moment, it is in much worse condition than the previous one. All four splines were broken through and the corners are in a bad way. Like the other one I also had to extend the rebate by quite a lot (3cm each side, 1cm top and bottom), but because the inner part of the frame and especially the sanded panel section of the moulding are very thin, I did the rebate extending on the table saw instead of with the router. The saw allowed me to remove small amounts at a time and is not quite as heavy-handed as the router.
The extending of the rebate on this frame is not ideal as there is now only about 1/8 or less of timber underneath the sanded panel, which makes the whole rebate very weak and care will need to be taken when fitting the painting. 

Repairs and extending rebate

This antique carved Louis XIV frame was damaged and broken at all four corners, which were loose and wobbly. First I put glue and filler in the gaps in the mitres, then I put some plywood pieces on the corners with glue and screws to brace and secure them. Next the rebate needed extending to fit the painting that it will surround, quite an amount of wood was removed from the long sides which meant the corner splines were cut through, so the plywood braces are even more necessary. The frame appears to be carved from walnut (or oak??), next I will work on the front, fixing and restoring the corners and centres.

Slip rebate size

The rebate or rabbet width on frames and slips can often be a little narrow when framing paintings on canvas. The edges of the canvas can sometimes be patchy or untidy and have areas that need to be covered, and often the canvas will be unsquare which means even if the frame rebate is made large enough the canvas may not fit. 

The linen slip frame above needed the rebate width increasing to accommodate the painting, so it could be fitted into an antique frame. This was done after the lengths were cut to size, but before the slip was joined together. I did this using a table saw, just a few passes and it is done. 

More routering

The rebate extending continues, this time on the outer veneer frame that will surround the gilt slip from a few posts ago. The rebate on the outer frame was made bigger for a few reasons, firstly the gilded slip was quite wide and would have looked a little unbalanced, secondly there was some damage/chips around the edges that needed covering up, and thirdly and most importantly the frame was a little small so by extending the rebate it also increased the size. In the top photo you can just see the router I use, a Trend T4, it is quite light weight compared to some of the larger routers you can get but I find it fine for this type of work. You can also see safety glasses and ear defenders which are important.
I would like to get a little palm router or laminate trimmer for when you need to nibble a small amount of wood from a rebate, often just at the corners.

So after the rebate was made bigger the frame was broken apart, the nails were removed from the corners and it was cut to size on the mitre saw, glued, pinned, and then clamped.

Wide rebate

This antique slip frame of mine is being cut down and used on an antique painting, the rebate has been extended as much as possible to cover some areas of damage around the painting. Next I will cut down the outer frame, which is an antique veneered frame, which has been supplied by the customer.