scroll sawyers

Hi Dan,

Normally in a picture frame the glass is held in front by the frame rebate. A back (of thin hardboard, thin mdf of thick card) holds the glass and picture/mount assembly in place and this back is secured by tacks. Depending on whether you have a lot of small insects in your area, you may wish to put DS tape in the rebate before fitting the glass to seal it.

If you had a lot to do, it would be worth using a glaziers tack hammer, which looks similar to a large office stapler, but which fires small flat triangular or diamond-shaped tacks. Pro framers use these and it makes the job quick and safe (in that you're unlikely to break the glass)

On a smaller scale, you can buy a pin-pusher device, which holds small pins. You'd lay your picture face down with the side to be nailed against a robust fence (a bit of 2 x 2 clamped to the bench) and simply push the pins into the frame sideways, leaving a little of the head showing to hold the back in place.

If you're doing a one-off, then you could use small panel pins (almost headless nails) instead, with a small hammer and a pin punch, with a similar fence arrangement. You need to be careful that you're putting the pin in almost dead horizontally - too much of an angle down and you run the risk of fracturing the glass. Start the pins first by pushing them into the frame with pliers, since there isn't really enough room to hold them with your fingers.

Once the back is secured, you'd tape over the frame-back joint all round to seal the frame and hide the pins.

HTH

Frank