I recently bought a set of art prints from an Indonesian artist — a series of four illustrated drawings of Malaysian cities: Malacca, Penang, Cameron Highlands, and Kuala Lumpur. Each print is A4 size with very thin margins, which made finding off-the-shelf frames tricky. Most standard frames are built with a wider overlap that would crop into the artwork. So I decided to make the frames myself.
At the hardware store I found straight-edge beech wood strips — simple, unfinished, with a clean natural grain. No profile, no decorative moulding. I liked the look of raw beech: warm, minimal, and honest. It also happened to be cheap. I bought enough to make four frames (with a bit of spare).
Before cutting the mitres, I used the router to cut a rabbet along the back inside edge of each strip — a shallow L-shaped channel that would later hold the acrylic sheet, the print, and the backing board. Getting this step done on the long strips first, before cutting them to length, made it much easier to handle on the router table.
The trickiest part was then getting the mitre cuts right. Each strip needs two 45° cuts at opposite ends — and all 16 pieces across four frames need to be consistent, or the corners won’t close cleanly. I used the mitre saw station in the workshop to cut them all at once in batches.
Before gluing, I dry-fitted each frame on the cutting mat to check the corners. This step is worth doing — it’s much easier to re-cut a strip now than to fix a gap after the glue is set. The cutting mat made a good reference grid for keeping everything square.
After gluing and clamping, I had 4 completed frames. I used clear acrylic sheet instead of glass — lighter, less fragile, and much easier to cut to size at home. No finish applied on the wood; I left the beech raw. Over time it will darken slightly and develop a patina, which I think will only look better.
The prints fit perfectly with the full margin visible. Seeing all four Malaysian cities framed and side by side was satisfying — especially since the frames cost little compared to having them custom-made at a framing shop (where labor in Switzerland is expensive).