DIY Frame to Stretch Canvas

I made these DIY frames on which to stretch some painted canvases. The frames are constructed from some scraps of 1" thick oak stair treads and joined using half lap joints. I recommend using a softer wood than oak.

This took a little bit of practice, but the frames are easy and cheap to make.

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Supplies:

• T50 1/4" staples
• Magic Cat painting
• Surf Shack painting

Tools:

• Arrow T50 staple gun
• Canvas pliers
• Titebond I - 1 quart
• Empire 6" combination square
• Stanley 12' tape measure
• Kreg bench dogs
• DeWalt trigger clamps

(Supplies links are Amazon affiliate links)

Start with some painted or blank canvases. I recommend making two or three at the same time, because this project is made faster with repeat cuts.

Measure the height and width of the painted part of the canvas. This will be the final size of the frame.

Rip the pieces of wood on the tablesaw to their final width. I am ripping the pieces to 1"x1", but if you have thinner wood to work with, you should make it 1-1/4" wide.

Using a miter saw or a crosscut sled on the table saw, cut the frame pieces to length. The side pieces will be the full height of the panting, and the top and bottom pieces will be the full width of the painting, because they will overlap.

You can see my video on how to make a crosscut sled here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgSG54mrD18

The dado stack is optional, but it saves a lot of time. This can also be done with a regular blade and multiple passes.

On one of the frame pieces, use a pencil or marking gauge to mark half the thickness of the frame.

Use this mark to set the height of your dado stack or tablesaw blade.

Set up a stop block on your crosscut sled that at the full width of the frame piece. For example, this frame is 1" wide, so I am setting the stop block at 1".

Cut the shoulder of the joint by putting your piece against the stop block, and then repeat with more passes to remove the rest of the material.

Do this for all of the frame pieces, removing half of the piece on the ends, on the same face of the piece.

The dado stack will ruin your crosscut sled by making a large kerf in it, so use an old one or make a sled that is dedicated for dado stacks and angled cuts.

Glue the corners with wood glue and clamp them together.

Check the corners with a square, or measure the diagonals to make sure the frame is square.

Once the glue has dried, remove the clamps and finish nail or crown staple the corners of the frame.

If you don't have clamps for the previous step, you can nail the corners while the glue is wet and it should help clamp them while the glue dries.

On my frames, a couple of the pieces stood up above the other ones, because my half lap joint wasn't perfect.

Hand plane the high parts until they are flush with the other pieces, or sand them down.

Then add a slight chamfer to the corner with a plane or sandpaper, so the canvas is not wrapping around a sharp-edged corner.

I drew a line on the back of the canvas that shows where the painting ends. This helps a lot with aligning the painting.

Place the frame within this rectangle.

Pull up one of the sides and staple it in the middle.

Then pull up the opposite side and stretch it tight and staple it in the middle.

A set of canvas pliers helps a lot to stretch it tightly, but it is possible to do with just your hands, although more difficult.

A hand-operated stapler also works, but a pneumatic stapler is much easier. See the tools list at the beginning.

Rotate the frame and staple and stretch the other two sides. At this point you will only have 4 parts stapled.

Once the middle is stapled and stretched, continue that process, working outward towards the corners.

Fold the corners neatly and staple them to the back of the frame. This fold should hide all the excess canvas in the corner. This is the "hospital corners" method from upholstery.

Generally, the sides of a canvas are more visible than the top and bottom when it is hanging, so the thicker part of the hospital corners should be on the top and bottom of the frame, not on the side.

Screw an eyehook into each side of the frame, and stretch a wire between them. It it now ready to hang or to paint!

These two paintings came out very nice on their frames, and I will use this process a lot in the future to make cheaper canvases and for using paint-by-numbers canvases.

Thanks for looking and make sure to check out my Youtube.