You'd think that after doing all this technical work,
cutting a mat would be simple. Nope. This took me the most
time of all of the steps. I first tried using thick paper,
similar to posterboard, as seen in this picture, but even
after taking careful measurements, I messed it up -- twice!
Besides that, it looked cheap. The paper was a little wavy
and the LCD's fluorescent light could shine through the
paper along the right-hand side. It was not what I wanted.
You can see in this picture that I was way off. This
was the first attempt. I was so disgusted with myself on
the second attempt that I didn't take any pictures. The
difficulty comes from the fact that the LCD is mounted to
the backboard. Normally the photo that you're framing is
just paper so you can tape it to the matting. In this case,
the matting must be cut exactly beforehand so that you can
drop it in the frame and it'll line up perfectly with the
pixels along all four edges of the LCD as well as the edges
of the frame. In the end I went to
Frames Unlimited and ordered a mat
custom cut. I gave the guy my dimensions and he cut it
perfectly for a mere $19. Yes, that's more than I
spent on the whole frame. The problem was, my
measurements weren't perfect again! The hole in the
mat was perfect but when I used it, the mat didn't
come to one of the edges since the LCD isn't exactly
centered. I could see one edge of the backboard
through the glass. After a moment of panic, I realized
that I could carefully cut the mat that came with the
frame so that I'd have a 1.5" border around the edges.
I thought that that would cover the mistake and give
the picture a better look anyway. I was right! I cut
it at a 90 degree angle, not a 45 like the pro, using
an X-acto knife. The matting is thick so it took a
couple tries but I got it. I dropped that in the frame
(after cleaning the glass thoroughly), then taped and
glued the $19 mat to the backboard, perfectly aligning
it with the LCD. I used masking tape and regular ol'
Elmer's glue for this. I carefully inserted the
backboard/LCD/whole thing into the frame and bent the
metal tabs to hold it in place. Success!! It looked
better than I'd hoped it would!
All I needed now was to figure out how to hang it
level, a problem since the frame is heavier on one side
than the other. I also had to come up with some simple way
to make the frame stick away from the wall by about 1/8
inch because, even after all of my careful work, one of the
LCD cables was sticking up a bit too much and I didn't want
it to be crushed against the wall since it's one of the
most critical components. Both problems had easy solutions.
To hang the frame, I just screwed two picture hanger things
to the back. I got these for free from the nice guy at
Frames Unlimited (Thanks, guy). I applied sticky-backed
felt to the edges of the frame to use as spacers and also
to keep the heavy frame from pressing against my living
room wall. In the end I ripped these strips off and used
circular pads on the four corners instead, just for
aesthetics. I drilled two holes in my plaster walls and
pushed plastic mollies into the holes. A screw through each
expands the molly and makes it almost impossible to remove
without destroying a portion of the wall. As long as those
holes were level, the picture frame would be level, too. It
looks great!
