HANGING A PICTURE FRAME ON THE WALL : HOW TO FIX A HOOK…

Your canvas painting is framed, your art-work is mounted… You have now to hang it on the wall !

How? Once you have chosen the site, the problem depends primarily of the wall : You can't fix a hook on a plasterboard wall in the same way as on a concrete wall.

Is it necessary to drill a hole to fix a wall plug ? How not to leave traces on the wall in preparation for a removal ? How to layout the framed paintings on a wall ? As many questions which we will try to answer.

Avoiding the adhesive hooks…

Let us say immediately that the solutions containing adhesive hooks are to be banished definitively ! Unless having to suspend only a car ignition-key !

Some adhesives fall apart brutally, without preventing, and generally in the middle of the night, in a great crash ! Others stick so well to the wall… which it is impossible to remove them without tearing off part of the coating or the wall paper , which is contrary with the result considered.

Same concerning the adhesive dots (patafix) which are not adapted to the fixing of heavy objects : reserve their use to fix without danger at the wall… a postcard or a poster, at the maximum !

To drill the wall or not?

Nobody likes to bore in the walls… especially the tenants who wish to recover their guarantee at the conclusion of their lease.

- If your framed painting weighs, let us say less 15kg, you will not need to drill the wall to place a wall plug… Whatever the nature of the wall, there exists a simple solution to be implemented (small or double hooks "X" for example).

- If your framed painting is heavier… then it will obligatorily be necessary "to wall plug" : with a drilling machine and a drill with carbide to bore a hole and pose there a wall plug. Screw a hook inside. There, the choice of wall plug will depend on material of the wall.

And when you will leave your apartment, you will stop the holes with a little of ready mixed plaster (Polyfilla), a light sanding and just a little bit of coat… and, if you were careful with drilling, you are able to well dissimulate them.

Traditional wall: bricks and plaster.

- For a light frame, you can hammer in a small turned blue steel nail.

These nails have 4 cm length and 1,5mm thickness.

They are sold out of little packs in do-it-yourself stores under the name of “ black concrete nails ”.

Tap slightly with the hammer until the nail crosses the brick under the plaster. There you can hang a frame whose weight does not exceed 3 kg!

- For more weights, think of the range of all the hooks “X”. Specialized in the fixing for more than 100 years, this "X" medium size firm (it's not a joke !) has marketed a great diversity of hooks.

According to the weight of your frame, you will have the choice between models with 1,2 or 3 points. Resistances obtained are interesting since the range of the advised weights goes from 5 to 30 kg!

- And if your frame is really heavy… You have to bore a hole with a drill, pose a wall plug and screw in it the support.

In this case, think of not damaging the wall, do not forget, before drilling, to cross incise the wallpaper and slightly lift up the 4 points before boring.

Thus, if you have to leave your apartment, you remove the screws, fold back the 4 points, a bit of glue, and practically nothing is seen any more.

With good pluggs, you can suspend in a healthy wall between 30 and 50 kg… Trust resistances which are given on the plugs packing : each manufacturer tested their models!

When necessary, you can put several plugs which are distributed a mass important to suspend.

Concrete wall.

If your wall is out of concrete, and it is increasingly frequent in the modern buildings, hook "X" proposes to you small brass or plastic hooks. provided with 3 small nails which will clutch the concrete with force. Their resistance is astonishing.

To pose them, you maintain them in place and with a hammer you drive simultaneously the 3 or 4 steel nails. Those will create a sufficiently solid point of anchoring to support between 5 and 30 kg according to the models. Always read closely instructions !!!

For the more important masses, it will be necessary to bore and to pose wall dovels: a hammer drill will be necessary with an excellent carbide drill bit… Hard, hard in some vibrated concretes but that holds well!!!

Wall in plasterboards.

They are now very frequent and gradually tend to replace the traditional partitions bricks+plaster. There is a problem about the resistance of the partition itself ! Traditional hooks with pins can sometimes come out of walls made of plasterboard.

You can't do use ordinary wall plugs. The wall plugs do expand as you screw into them, but the plasterboard is soft and the expansion simply widens the hole you have put the plug into... You need proprietary fixings !

- This special plasterbaord hook has a special flat spike and you simply press it into the wall, using finger pressure or a hammer. only recommended for small pictures up to about 7kgs.- You can make confidence in the HOOKS "X" which propose this plasterboard fixing …

Their especially studied form and the flat spike to insert make it possible to distribute the effort on a more important surface.

The “traditional” wall plugs do not well hold in plasterboard patitions....

- until 30kg… There exist special plasterboard plugs. For their shear strength (for a frame, it does not work in wrenching!) trust to what is indicated on instructions :

- Until 50kg (some say 75…) you can use “umbrella plugs” called hollow wall anchors. All do-it-yourself forums say that you should make confidence only with MOLLY hollow wall anchor !

You drill initially a hole in the plasterboard with the dimension of your plug then, with a special grip, you will fold up the back of the plug, “like an umbrella”, behind the plasterboard…

You will obtain a good resistance then, as well with wrenching as with shearing.

- The plates of plasterboard are screwed on metal pieces called “furs”… You can locate them while tapping on the wall and by trusting you the sound…

If you found on a “metal furring”, you can bore and there, to put ordinaryplug : that will hold correctly!

- By applying the principle of the “mass distribution”, several MOLLY anchors can support a mass much more important… For example, you can fix at the wall a wood plate held by 4 umbrella plugs : and on this wood plate, you will be able to screw your fixing!

Beyond that, we exceed the matter of this page!

See also the special page how to fix in hollow materials

An elegant solution… the clip rail mounting !

It is the solution chosen by all the galleries which expose framed paintings and which must often renew their exposure.

If you wish to gather several frames on the same wall, it will be for you a good alternative.

The clip rail mounting is composed of a small “rack” which comes to be screwed with or near the ceiling. On this rack you can hangs steel or perlon cords, sometimes steel rods which will be used as support for your frames via adjustable hooks throughout the cord or rod.

Have a look on this page !

It is, the better way to build a “wall” of paintings and frames without constellating the wall with unaesthetic perforations.

A small “trick”: how to rectify a frame...

The frames fixed on a wall are never right! Unceasingly, you should rectify their position because they are always tilted.

They will not move any more if you fix a whole small piece of double-coated tape (or a pearl of Bostic White Stick'n Fix) in the bottom of the frame to make it very slightly adhere to the wall !