Show collectible corks in a bottle-shaped box

Art Business News, March, 2003 by Fred Schneider

From time to time, customers approach me looking for ideas on how to frame collectibles. A recent customer asked for a unique way to display his cork collection. He is a wine connoisseur and wanted to display the corks near his collection of fully stocked wine racks. Together, we decided on a bottle-shaped shadow-box frame using Framerica's Boxer moulding.

To begin the process, I cut the bottom piece of the "bottle" to an 8-inch width and the top piece to 3 1/2 inches using regular, 45-degree cuts. Next, I cut the bottom uprights to 12 inches, 45 degrees on the bottom and 22 1/2 degrees on the top. The next stop up the bottle is the 3 1/2-inch piece up to the bottleneck. Here, I again cut 22 1/2-degree angles on each side, one on the inside and one on the outside. For the 5-inch neck, the bottom cuts are 22 1/2 degrees with the tops cut at 45 degrees.

To join the moulding pieces, I used a standard joining machine on the bottom 90-degree angle and a brad gun for the rest. I also used Framerica's CornerWeld[TM] glue to secure all the joins. The same process should be used for additional stacked pieces.

In this instance, I used two Boxer extenders (Framerica #92273) to reach my desired depth, I then lined the inside with Crescent's black matboard and cut 1/8-inch Plexiglas to fit the front. To insert the corks, I drilled a hole in the top of the frame using a grommet and inserted an oversized cork into the hole to top it off.

The customer was very excited with the end result and left to celebrate his new display with what else but a bottle of fine wine.

Fred is a 15-year employee of County Frame in Long Island, N. Y., and has been framing for more than 25 years. If you would like to share your ideas, please contact him at (631) 567-8889 or e-mail Fred@ CountryFrame.net