Turn Your Dead Scanner Into a Picture Frame

Before it was a scanner ready to be tossed out.

After it turned into a nice bit of furniture to display the magnificence of your photography skills.

I know I am not the only one out there that as salvage tons of parts from printers and scanners of all shapes and sizes.

There was this dismantled one on my shelf, it was just waiting to be scraped but I was still annoyed to trash this perfectly fine piece of glass that made up the scanner part.

So this is my tutorial that might give you the motivation to do as I did and salvage not only the motors and rails, but also the very fine piece of glass that is waiting for you !!

This is my entry to the before and after contest, hope you will enjoy it.

Step 1: Tacking Out the Glass and Figuring Out the Dimensions

Taking out the glass from the plastic enclosure is pretty straight forward, but removing the hot glue was harder than I expected.

The magic trick is to soak the glue tacks with isopropyl alcohol, I used my mum's nail polish remover and it worked just fine.

Also before going to the next step you want to measure your piece of glass and write the dimensions down.

Step 2: Making the Wooden Frame

To make the wooden frame I used long pieces of scrap wood that I had laying around.

I encourage you to do so since my goal with this project was to make something entirely out of scrap materials that I already had. The whole build din't cost me anything.

Back to the frame, I used a router to make the step into the wood. Make sure you use a rail to produce a clean straight indent in which the glass and the picture will seat.

When you want to repeat the same cut more than once make sure you use some kind of a jig, since it will save you from screwing up the dimensions.

After having rout out the step into the wood you want to cut at a 45° angle the pieces of wood, the dimensions of the pieces needs to be taken not at the outside nor the inside edge but at the step since it is where the glass will seat.

Once you have all your pieces cut at 45° you can dry fit them and it should make for a nice rectangle in which the piece of glass is suppose to fit. You can then give the freshly cut ends a little sanding and start to glue everything together. You need to use a minimum of 4 clamps and be careful, you need to tighten the clamps slowly giving an equal amount of pressure all around the frame, otherwise the joints might slips and the squareness of your frame will be ruined.

At the end of this step you should have a frame that start to look like something.

Step 3: Giving the Frame a Nice Finish

I wanted my frame to be as pretty as possible, so I decided to put multiple coats of wood stain on.

I chose a light white that allows the wood grain to come through which makes for a very professional looks.

Before applying the stain I sanded the whole frame with 120 and 220 grit sandpaper. I applied in total 3 coats of stain, each 3 hours after the previous one. I finally let the frame dry over night and smoothed the excess stain out with 480 grit sandpaper the next morning.

Step 4: Adding Features to Hold the Glass/picture

To hold the glass, the picture and the background, I made four little retainer thingy that screw into place all around the frame. Each of these retainer is made out of scrap MDF, an it is pretty simple to make since is it juste a rectangle with an offset hole on one side.

For the white background, I sticked with the zero cost motivation and I decided to reuse an old cardboard envelop. It is just a matter of cutting the cardboard to the dimension with a straight edge and a utility knife, and gluing around the edge a white sheet of paper.

Then just stack the glass, your favorite drawings and the cardboard background, and there you have it !!! Your own brand spanking new picture frame made out of almost nothing !!

Step 5: How to Adapt to Your Needs.

As far as the process goes I think it will always come down to those basic steps:

cutting, gluing, painting, finishing !!

What can be different for your build ? the glass dimensions !! and that's pretty much it.

So you will have to be careful to cut the recess deep enough and to cut the pieces at the right length. Also be careful and don't make the dimensions to tight to the glass, it might not fit if the wood expand/contract during the painting process.

Thanks a bunch for reading through my instructable, and feel free to ask me anything in the comment section. If you make a frame on your own please share a little picture in the comments I would very much appreciate it !!