As a Custom Picture Framer I would dread seeing a customer walk through the door with an unstretched canvas. My mind would race with fantasy thoughts of animated canvas pliers nipping at my fingers. I purposely avoided stretching canvas never realizing how much money I was turning away at the door. It was far too time consuming to stretch canvas using a pair of canvas pliers. Now I offer this service while they wait.

Several months ago I decided that there had to be a better way of stretching canvas, I wanted to create a device that would apply even tension along the full length of the stretcher bar at one time. Canvas pliers have been around for a long time, they are not fast but they can apply tremendous stretching force on a canvas one bite at a time. A pair of pliers, in its most basic form is a fulcrum. The mechanical advantage is determined by the amount of force applied by the operator. It stands to reason that if I am able to hold the canvas in-place along the entire length then I should be able to apply a force to the base of the stretcher bar to get a tight uniform stretch.

I made a 3' long wooden clamp to secure the canvas I then forced the stretcher bar over a fixed fulcrum. It worked! It worked very well, not much to look at and it resembled a medieval torture device but it worked. I then decided that most custom picture framers, artists and printers of fine art giclees might benefit from this design so I set out to improve on the design and it's look.

The evolution of this design was lengthy and financially draining, but it was also very gratifying. Instead of looking like a torture device, it now looks like a ride from an amusement park. What once was operated by 2 hamsters and a banana on a string has evolved into a fully pneumatic bench mounted thing of beauty. It is able to produce gallery wraps and regular stretches as fast as you can feed canvas into the clamp and squeeze the trigger of a staple gun. I can stretch an 11" X 14" canvas in just over a minute; I can stretch a 40" X 40" canvas in less than 3 minutes. It only requires 1.5" of excess canvas past the image to get a tight stretch and all of the stapling is done from the front. I designed this stretcher to be mounted on the side of a typical workbench so the operator could slide and rotate the artwork face-up.

There are several canvas stretching machines on the market, some manual and some are pneumatic. I am not suggesting that any of them are inferior or better than the other I am suggesting that you explore your options. Artists, printers and custom picture framers are missing out on the "cash cow" by sending their customers away. It is far too easy to stretch a canvas with the proper tools, why send a customer away to be stretched by a competitor.

Dave Weaver

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