Anyone do custom framing...this seemed very ridiculous....

[OdiN1701]

I am back from a local custom frame shop. Just picking up some mat board. I cut my own thankfully.

Anyway the guy in front of me had brought a drawing/painting of some sort in to be framed.

They put it in a 16x20 frame. Nothing fancy...regular natural wood frame. Double matted, also regular glass - not the special anti-glare stuff.

The cost for this?

$192.66

That seems WAY out of line to me. Also the guy wasn't even given a quote and he was somewhat upset at the price.

Just for giggles I asked what a basic plain black frame, 20x24 would cost - no matting or anything, just the frame. Quoted about $100.

[amfoto1]

That's fairly typical actually. Raise your prices.

[engsetr1]

Yeah, that's why I cut my own mats too. Now I only need to learn woodworking! :)

[OdiN1701]

I don't do custom framing. I usually grab pre-built stuff and do all the mat cutting myself.

I priced out a similar frame from my source. About $60. That's fully assembled custom frame. And this is not some special price - anyone can get it at that.

I know there is markup but that seems like quite a lot of markup. Over 300%!

But I don't sell much in the way of frames either so I was just kind of shocked that they would be that much.

[OdiN1701]

Yeah, that's why I cut my own mats too. Now I only need to learn woodworking! :)

I'm good at that too.

Frames really aren't that hard. Few tools and saw, etc. and you can put them together. The hardest part is getting the cuts just right so everything matches up and getting them held together nice and tight.

Well the quotes I got for doing mats around here was about $25-30 for a double mat - just the cutting, not the mat itself. So I got my own cutter :P

[Dermit]

$192.... wow, that's cheap! I remember about 5 years ago going in to get a 16 x 20 double matted and framed at a place and it was quoted to be around $400. So I walked out, not going through with it, went home, ordered a real nice mat cutter for $350 and now i cut my own mats and buy off the shelf frames...usually in the $20 to $60 range.

[photoguy6405]

Framing is a scam.

Ok, not literally, but it is frustrating from a consumer standpoint.

[Tixeon]

Believe it or not, some photographers make more money (profit) from framing than from photography. You just got to be in the right location. People with money will balk at the price of photography but not bat an eye at ridiculous framing prices. It's like buying furniture to them.

[OdiN1701]

It's about as bad as the cable business in terms of how much markup there is.

10 Foot USB Cable. The most expensive part on it is the connectors. Probably costs all of $0.25 for the actual company that manufactures it. They sell it for like $1.25 to vendors who turn around and sell them for $7.99 or whatever.

Then you get into the "premium" audio cable BS. 3 foot HDMI cable from your local store probably anywhere from $40-$60.

(BTW if anyone needs cables at reasonable prices - http://www.monoprice.com/)

[tim]

Framers have an incredible markup. I use online frame suppliers that do good work at reasonable prices.

[Aszental]

Who do you use Tim?

[ssim]

The markup is horrendous (for us) but I quit hunting around just to save a couple of dollars and starting using the same person all the time. In the course of doing this they have given me a 30% standing discount and they are still making money.

The price the OP listed sounds about right and is not out of line with the industry standard. These businesses seemed to have been able to keep their prices at the point where they get a reasonable return while photographers seem to be going the other way but trying to undercut each other to ridiculous levels (imo)

[tim]

Who do you use Tim?

It doesn't much help you to know who I use, since i'm in a different country.

[scotthidley]

Watch the new paper ads for the chain craft stores. At least in Michigan the employees would tell me to come back the next week as it'd be 50% off then (those sales were on a regular basis).

[cory1848]

I used to work as a framer. Molding can get quite expensive and plexi isnt cheap either. Then there is the labor. Its more than just a saw and nails to put one together, at least correctly. There is a jig used for that and it staples the corners after the cut. I have done single, double and triple mats before and a lot of doubles with molding on the mat, that is a pain but looks good. Depending on the complexity of the job, it can take half hour to a full hour to put one together.

How much do all you pro photos charge an hour? If you think about that and the materials involved, $192 isnt so bad.

[golfecho]

I do make my own frames. As mentioned above, the best way is with a framing jig (I have a basic one) and a corner nailer (I don't have one). I have and use a fairly well equipped wood shop, but that just makes the cuts correctly. Much of the cost is in the type of framing material used. I have searched about quite a bit, and there are various framing styles available in lengths (uncut, called lineal lengths). These are mostly priced at between $6 per foot and on up to well over $25 per foot.

Even though I do my own cutting, this can get expensive. For example, the frame for a 20x30 with no matting will need about 12 feet of framing material. Even at $6 per foot, this is $72 for just the material, without any costs associated with cutting and assembly. (The $6 stuff is not all that great) As the quality of the framing material goes up, you can easily see the costs skyrocketing. Start to add glass and matting, it easily gets quite pricy.

I have lately taken to making my own framing material. This can be very time consuming, depending on what shapes you want (enter the router, planer, shaper, etc). So one technique I have tried is using off-the-shelf trim material designed for other uses (it seems that the cost for lineal framing is higher just because it is for frames. Similarly complex shapes for other purposes seem much less expensive). For example, I use solid oak chair rail, and then glue a strip of 1/2 inch by 2 inch oak along the back to end up with a very nice framing shape (for larger prints anyway). The chair rail is $2.06 per foot, and the 1/2 x 2 is about $.96 per foot. Net result is about $3 per foot. It turns our very nice, but does involve additional steps (gluing the two together prior to cutting, assembly in the jig, and then staining and sealing or painting). End result is a very nice product, but not exactly the best solution for mass production. I wouldn't want to make more than a few a week, simply because of the labor-intensive steps involved.

Side note: It also feeds my appetite for my other main hobby, woodworking.

[AdrianeCale]

I live (and have my studio) above a custom framing shop. My landlord is always telling me how much it costs to run his business. Mouldings aren't cheap, they have to pay by the inch in most cases. And as stated above, you then have your time and materials it takes to put them together, not to mention glass if necessary. So your overhead on one frame is already pretty high, then you have to figure out how to pay your bills.

I'm lucky, because he'll give me anything I want at cost. But it's still pretty high. I purchased a basic black 8x10 frame without glass, and it still cost right around $20.

[strmrdr]

For the quality of the wood used you cant beat these guys,,,
http://www.racinphoto.com/index.html

A friend of a friend runs a gallery and turned me on to them.
The wood quality is superior and the prices really reasonable for the quality.