Framing a Green River Fish

[Sagebrush Steve]

We are back home now after being evacuated for a week because of the wildfires around Santa Rosa.  Before we were evacuated I had started working on a Christmas gift for a friend who likes my fossils but is not a dedicated collector.  In searching through my collection, I found a Knightia eocaena fossil fish I had dug from the Split Fish Layer near Kemmerer, Wyoming.  It’s not the greatest specimen, but since I had both the part and counterpart I thought it might be interesting to put them together into a single frame.  I thought I would fill you in on what I did.

 

Original fish slabs

 

The first thing was to cut both slabs into identically-sized rectangles using an old tile saw I once picked up from Harbor Freight.  The next step was to figure out how I wanted to frame them.  To do the design, I used PowerPoint to create various size rectangles into which I pasted JPEGs of the fossils.  After a bit of experimentation, I came up with this design I liked.

 

PowerPoint design of framed fish

 

Since the design didn’t fit within a standard commercial frame, I needed to construct my own.  I started with ¾” pine corner molding I picked up at the local Home Depot for $0.78 per foot.  I bought 8 feet worth so I had plenty of extra in case I made a mistake.  I used a small miter box to cut the 45-degree angles on the frame pieces.  While the cuts were pretty good, I knew they wouldn’t be perfect.  So I made each piece slightly longer than necessary and used the disk sander on my Harbor Freight belt sander to sand the edges flat at the correct length. I used a 45-degree triangle to set the guide so I got a perfect 45-degree angle on the sander.

 

 

 

Next, I glued the frame together using wood glue.  I picked up two corner clamps from Harbor Freight (notice a trend here…) so I could glue two sides together at a time.  Once the glue dried I removed the clamps and used them again to glue the two halves together into the final frame.  To paint the frame, I used a can of spray paint in my custom-designed spray painting booth.

 

 

Custom designed paint booth built from materials in my garage.  Note it is obvious I live in wine country.

 

I considered several options for how to mount the fossils in the frame.  I finally decided to cut a piece of ½” plywood so that it just fit inside the frame.  Then I used my Harbor Freight scroll saw to cut out two rectangles just the right size for the fish.  I glued the fish into the plywood using Duco cement along the edges, making sure the fronts of the fish slabs were flush with the front of the plywood.

 

 

The next step was to cut a window mat out of mounting board that would fit between the plywood and the frame to give it a finished appearance.  To get the desired orange color I took ordinary white mat board and glued a sheet of colored artist’s paper onto it.   I have a Logan Compact Mat Cutter that I use to cut mats when mounting my photographs.  It wasn’t designed to cut such small mats but with a little creativity I was able to make it work.  You can see all the lines I drew on the back of the board showing where to make the cuts.  I also cut a piece of 1/32” clear acrylic to fit between the mat and the frame for protection.

 

 

 

The fossil slabs were too thick for the frame and I needed to thin them down.  So it was back to the Harbor Freight belt sander.  Although I had never tried this before, I figured the matrix was soft enough that the 80-grit sandpaper would make short work of it, and besides, the sanding belt would be inexpensive to replace if necessary.  As predicted, it worked fine.

 

 

Finally, I cut a piece of ¼” red oak I had laying around to serve as the back, painted it the same color as the frame, added a sawtooth picture hanger, glued a laser-printed label on the plywood, and screwed it all together.  Here is the final result:

 

 

It was such a fun project I decided to take the same approach to construct a homemade version of a Riker mount:

 

 

 

 

[snolly50]

Well done! It looks great.

[Fossildude19]

Very impressive work, Steve!

Thanks for showing us. It looks amazing.

[RJB]

Very nicley done and I like your nice clean garage/shop

 

RB

[Ptychodus04]

Well done. Will you come over and organize my garage please? 

 

Also glad you didn’t suffer a loss from the fires (I’m assuming).

[Sagebrush Steve]

4 hours ago, RJB said:

Very nicley done and I like your nice clean garage/shop

 

RB

 

2 hours ago, Ptychodus04 said:

Well done. Will you come over and organize my garage please? 

 

Also glad you didn’t suffer a loss from the fires (I’m assuming).

Like any good photographer I know how to take photos from the best angles.  I didn't show how I have to move boxes of stuff out of the way just to get to my workbench 

 

And yes, remarkably we were spared any fire damage. 

[Ludwigia]

Looks great, Steve!