Bespoke Stretcher Bars

[Justintime]

Can someone share a list of made to measure stretcher bar suppliers please? TIA

[YPF]

On the few occasions I need made to measure bars I use Centrado

[Justintime]

Thanks Steve

[Tudor Rose]

We’ve always used Bird & Davis in London. Superb quality and service.

https://birdanddavis.com/

[Not your average framer]

I have used Bird and Davis, but that's a long time ago. I'm guessing that I might make my own if I need any in the future, since I now have quite a bit of woodworking machinery and making the interlocking corners and wedges is relatively straight forward for me now.

[Justintime]

Thanks Jo and Mark, perfect job done!

[Not your average framer]

When I need non stadard sized stretchers and I can't use stretcher bar moulding and under pin it at the corners,I can join standard sized strether bars with bridal jounts and still have the factory machined ends to fit together at the corners and be able to use the usual corner wedges. The joints are glued, clamped and pinned from the hidden side and after sanding the joints are almost invisible.

I have a little jig for cutting tenons, which makes bridal joints relatively quick and easy. Of course really large artwork will need much bigger section sizes of wood and in these cases, standard size stretcher bars are not really solid enough. I also make my own strainers, usually from unused off cuts with is quick, cheap and easy.

[Justintime]

Thanks Mark. yes this is a 1.6m x .5m canvas of value, so its going to have to be robust and braced.
I'll have to make adjustments in future for bespoke stretcher bar prices, quite a step up from Lions and the shipping alone was £21.99!!

[Tudor Rose]

Worth every penny though!

One of the joys of dealing with a company like Bird & Davis (other similar companies are available!) is that, as experts in what they do, you can just tell them the size of your canvas and they will give their best advice on the size of bars and bracing options.

[Not your average framer]

Great company as well!

[prospero]

Harris-Moore.

https://www.harrismoorecanvases.co.uk/

Beautifully made.

For more light weight jobs you can use the slotted type stuff that comes by the length. The trick with it is to find ply
that is just the right thickness for the triangle pieces in the corners. It's not quite the same as the 'proper' keyed corners
but you can cut it yourself.

[fitz]

I get mine from www.eternamedia.co.uk. Great service and good prices too IMO.

[GeoSpectrum]

You might be interested in trying mine. https://www.ashcraftframing.co.uk/stret ... s-87-c.asp

[Justintime]

They look interesting Alan. Will you be able to supply bespoke sizes?

[GeoSpectrum]

Yes, that was the idea of them in the first place. I had number of requests for bespoke sizes that I couldn’t fulfil. So came up with these. They are joined (and adjusted) by steel plate corners just like an alloy frame.

[Justintime]

I'd be interested to know what the FATG committee think of these. Only that I'm stretching a street art piece that could sky rocket in value. Any thoughts Jo?

[Tudor Rose]

I will ask some questions and come back to you.

[Tudor Rose]

OK, the response is that in framing there is invariably more than one way to achieve a result with new techniques and products being introduced to the market.

As long as there is a method for adjusting the tension over time, as there are with traditional bars and wedges, then they would be fine to use. It might be worth including instructions on how to do adjustments for future use.

On a personal curious framer note, I’m interested to know more about how easy it is to re-tension the canvas after the initial set up with the corner plate system. I’m also assuming that the aluminium removes the need for bracing bars?

There are bars these days with Allen keys to adjust corner tensions on an internal system as well as a variety of other options. With the increased use of tray frames where canvases are often screwed into place, the ability to use a wide variety of innovations in bar styles is to be welcomed.