Afromosia Diploma Frames

Pictured: Proof I'm a Warrior

Well I went a fancy school for some book-learnin' and purchased from them not one, but two, fancy sheepskin documents with gold-coloreds seal and autopen signatures on 'em. One even has Latin on it (I guess both do if you count "juris"). I figured if I had fancy diplomas that they needed fancy frames.

Now that's a fancy corner right there

In the past, most of my frames have square corner, which give a more rustic, less polished look to the frame. Mitered corners make for a more polished, dare I say more fancy, frame. As I was going for a classier looking frame for my diplomas, mitered corners were the obvious choice.

And a fancy edge if I do say so myself

The other thing that I wanted to do to set these frames out from my other work was to put a decorative edge on them. I tend to be more inclined to do square (slightly-broken) edges and corners. For the most part I prefer the clean simplicity of the lines that it creates. For this purpose, however, a decorative edge was very much so called for.

For the material, I used afromosia, Afromosia is an exotic hardwood from Africa. It is closed-grained, hard, and dense. It works fairly well, but the hardness of the material made me apprehensive about putting the edge on, which is done with a router and bit matching the profile you want. Because of this, I knew I needed a top-quality router bit, so I turned to the folks at Whiteside. Whiteside makes pretty much hands-down the finest router bits in the world (and they do so in 'Merica). With the proper tool it made short work of the afromosia and left an edge that was smooth as silk.

For the finish, to try something new, I decided to get some amber shellac. Shellac is very much so a different finish than varnish or polyurethane. It's "natural" in that it is made from the resin secreted by the lac bug, and amber shellac is mixed with a reddish dye, which tends to "warm up" darker woods. All in all, I think the frames turned out very well.

Take that Hobby Lobby and your ridiculous custom framing prices! Also, if you too have evidence of your book learnin' that you'd like to have framed up for display in your wherever, feel free to contact me.