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Creating a pattern for picture frames?

I am wanting to make some fancier frames out of 3/4 mdf with a jigsaw like this one here: http://www.etsy.com/listing/73490550/5x7-whimsical-and-unique-picture-f…

I have made one very similar to this for a friend and did pretty well for being my first one and doing it by myself. I used a parenthesis cut out from vinyl as my template but had problems figuring out the pattern measurements for a non square frame like 11x14 and getting the corners to round nicely and match up.

So in a nutshell, just wondering if anyone has any ideas for getting a good pattern and any tips. Thank you!

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claydowling

Tue, 02/07/2012 - 06:17

Your best bet is to work out how large a piece of MDF you're going to use, then divide that into quarters. Make whatever pattern suits your fancy in that quarter, and then through a series of flips transfer that pattern to the other four quarters.

If you draw your pattern on translucent tracing paper in the first quarter, you can then use a light colored transfer paper (similar to carbon paper, but in white or yellow) to transfer that to other quarters.

That way everything matches up nicely in the corners and you have to do a lot less work. By the way, if you're going to make more than one, using the first one as a router template is a great idea. Than you'd just need to cut the shape roughly for the rest, and the router with a trim bit cleans it up.