Building Stretcher Bars
Cutting the Bars to Size
Although I consider myself a multimedia artist, oil painting (followed by ceramics) is my first love. I enjoy watercolors too but there is something about the rich colors and juicy texture of the oil paint that keeps me coming back to it. As a painter, stretcher bars are an important component of the painting – they support the canvas. When I first started painting, I purchased cheap premade canvases from the art supply stores. After a while I moved up to buying the less expensive premade bars from the same art supply stores and stretched my own canvas. Unfortunately, those bars often warped over time. When I returned to graduate school for the second time to get my MFA, I commissioned a colleague who was also a carpenter to make my stretcher bars, these were much better quality and more substantial and did not warp! Sadly, he has since gotten out of the stretcher bar making business but I still have the bars I bought from him and have been reusing them over the years.
The start of 2022, I decided it was time to delve back into painting and as such a good time to learn how to make my own set of stretcher bars. After taking a series of paintings off the bars my colleague made for me, I spent some time studying how they were made. More specifically, I needed to figure out what kind of wood he used to make them as they really are durable supports.
After a trip to Home Depot with a stretcher bar in hand, I discovered what he used was actually molding that is used to frame out a door! This trim is extra thick and made of a wood particle board mix, and has a lip built in so I don’t have to add an extra piece to keep the canvas off the wood… brilliant! I had taken measurements for the dimensions of the bars before I left so after purchasing a couple of strips of molding it was back to the studio. Unfortunately, we had a cold snap after that so I had to put this project on hold until it warmed up a bit so I could work in the garage. My current studio isn’t large enough for the power tools so our garage is a secondary studio space at times.
A warm weekend finally arrived, and construction began. The first thing up was to measure out the length of each side and mark it on the wood. The next step was to set the Miter saw at a 45 degree angle and cut the wood. So as to make sure the corners fit, I needed to alternate the direction on the saw while still maintaining the 45 degree angle.
Once each piece was cut, I assembled it on the floor of the garage to see how it looked and to make sure each piece lined up correctly.
With that complete, I discovered I needed to make an extra run to Ace hardware this time because I didn’t have the correct kind of vices to hold the bars in place. So again, with stretcher bars in hand off I went, I found the perfect set of corner vices and I was back in business! Next step was to glue the corners together using wood glue and the vices.
Once the glue was set, I drilled holes for the screws and sunk the heads. With those two corners complete, I will repeat the steps to finish the bars once I get another warm weekend! There really is something very satisfying about making your own canvas supports – It means I’m now able to create a painting from start to finish or rather from the inside out!
