how does one attach a canvas to linen liner

SteveB

Grumbler in Training
Joined
Feb 3, 2005
Posts
9
Loc
Northeast Pennsylvania
perhaps the more experienced among you could tell one less so, how to attach a canvas to a linen liner. the canvas is stretched over wooden frame and the linen liner was ordered such that it has an allowance. Thank you.
 
Welcome to The Grumble, Steve.

Sometimes this forum is less responsive on the weekend, so I'll get this started and everyone else can chime in and tell me I'm full of it.

Attaching a stretched canvas to a linen liner is exactly like attaching it to any frame with a rabbet that is too shallow to accommodate it.

For a decent canvas, you might want to use commercial or home-made offset clips that screw into the liner and hold the canvas without any hardware piercing the stretchers or canvas.

For decorative canvases, I have been known to use the Fletcher fitting tool with the fasteners that have a hole - the Multi master?? - and put short screws through the hole into the stretcher. This is hardly a conservation technique, since you're piercing the canvas and the stretcher bars with the points, but it makes the whole assembly easy to remove from the frame, if necessary and, in my opinion, doesn't damage the canvas much more than the staples that are usually used to stretch it in the first place.
 
Welcome Steve. As usual Ron is full of pellet droppings. It only happens on the weekends, but it has been exsaserbated by the insurance thing.

As you have probably noticed, the staples or nails that are holding the canvas to the stretchers have been meticulously placed between the threads so as not to damage the integrety of the said canvas..... NOT.

Get your hands on the Fletcher multi (Yellow gun) that shoot the widget with the screw hole in it and slam away. a widget per foot should have you set. You gonna love that thing.

Hey Ron, while you're up, can you get me another cold one before it starts?
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Oh, and Steve, don't be hammering those stupid nails through the stretcher-bars, canvas, frame, and into the table... it's really embarrassing.

Get the Yellow gun...
 
I have the Fletcher yellow gun, it's a handy tool but I use it half as much as I would like.

Why in the world did they make the little widgets so short? The tool only works if you have a really tight allowance between the frame and the canvas.

Doug
 
Steve,

Welcome also from the Framerguy.

We used to run screw eyes into the edges of the canvas and then screw wood screws through the screw eye down into the frame. That has since been "outlawed" by the purist framers but it works for decorative canvasses. (That's up to you to judge the value of the canvas you have from your customer!)
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The canvas offsets work well if you want to keep from making additional holes in the canvas/stretcher bars or the Multi points may also work if the frame allowance isn't too much.

Well, I guess I mostly repeated what Ron said so I'll quit and go have a bit to eat now.
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Framerguy
 
SteveB,

Offsets are the way to go. Once you have a supply of all the sizes of offsets, you will never use screw eyes again. The offsests can be bent to accomodate odd sizes or to span the gap from frame to stretcher bars when there isn't enough room to put it on the liner. They come is sizes ranging from 1/8 inch to 1 1/2 inch.
 
Originally posted by DVieau2:
I have the Fletcher yellow gun, it's a handy tool but I use it half as much as I would like.

Why in the world did they make the little widgets so short? The tool only works if you have a really tight allowance between the frame and the canvas.

Doug
STANDARD ALLOWANCE, Doug, is only 1/8"..... that is 1/16" on every side.... how much did you need?

If you shoot the multi into the canvas on two sides then snug the canvas up to those sides. Run in screws. Then carefully wedge a screw driver between the canvas and liner/frame and pry untill you can match the screws on the other side, then pry back to center canvas....

Of course, if you're using 3/8" as your frame allowance....your getting to much allowance and all bets are off.
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Thank you all once again. I was looking in a supply catalog for a fletcher yellow gun but was not able to find it. i have framemaster for shooting points but i see you're referring to something else. i'll keep looking. in the meantime, the offset clips seem to be the best bet for the project i'm doing
 
Ahh, now i found it (the yellow gun), and i understand the idea of shooting the point into the canvas and using a screw through the hole. clever for decorative canvas. thanks.
 
Baer,

When the canvas is a little thick in the corners and tight in the middle of the legs you don't have the nice 1/16 allowance all the way around.

When the corner between the backside of the frame and the rabbit is a bit rounded you have to put the screw a little further back.

Your tip is a good one but it wouldn't work all the time.

This tool would be so much better if the points were 1/4,1/8 or even 1/16 longer.

I mentioned this once to a Fletcher rep at a trade show and she rolled her eyes back and nodded.
 
For decorative canvas...pneumatic narrow crown staples :eek: (gotta be right...I mean, I have pulled a ton of the suckers out of stretchers). :rolleyes:

Otherwise let's not forget to cover the back of the canvas with a polyflute (or some other protective barrier)panel before using the offset clips. It is the first thing I do when a canvas comes in...before I store it awaiting the frame.
 
The yellow gun. I don't use it as much as I'd like, either for the same reasons - the points are too short in most cases.

I did use it just yesterday and came up with a solution for the short points being to close to the edge of the frame - I used my staple gun to install! I positioned the gun over the hole so that one of the points was in the hole and the other outside. I did this twice, in opposite directions. It worked since the material I was working with was very lightweight - wouldn't trust it on a heavy piece.
 
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