alrighty we are going to do a little tutorial video i'm going to show you uh kind of a bonus feature here how to make a stretcher bar i'm going to do it with some equipment that it's likely very few people have but the concepts are essentially the same so however you end up doing this um make sure you kind of follow this guideline here anyway uh i like to use length molding for my stretcher bar then i can cut whatever size i want prefab deals tend to fall apart a little easier and don't make for a very strong hold but anyway however you cut your miter you want to first cut your front cut i've got a nice little chopper here it works really well but nevertheless that's what you want to end up with nice clean smooth miter if you use a chop saw that can sometimes work just as good as one of these just make sure you get a good you know make sure it's not moving when you're chopping it it's good and steady when you make your cut if you do end up with any weird burrs or tattered edges take something with a perfectly flat plane and sand it off a disc sander works really well or a sanding block but the idea is you want that plane of this miter to be just perfectly smooth you know whatever your measurement is going to be i do recommend taking out an eighth of an inch and that's to allow for some room for the canvas once you have that canvas stretched around there um you know you'll end up with about an eighth of an inch extra and then that way it'll still fit inside of a frame if you ever want to do a picture frame around your stretcher bar in this case i am making a stretcher bar that is 32 inches by 40 inches so uh let's go ahead and cut that i'm going to set my calibration to 39 and 7 8. so that's kind of like a standard allowance for that extra canvas all right i'm going to make your cut nice thing about a chopper like this is it kind of pre-cuts your next front cut for you like we did up here first but uh nevertheless if you've got a miter saw you'll end up with a you know miter like this so you'll have to kind of you know move your saw over and make your second front cut for your next piece you can make stretcher bars with just about anything you know like select pine works really well uh you know like things like like this i don't know if you can see it or not just a select pine only downside to that is if you look down this uh there's a little ridge right here so it basically minimizes contact on your canvas when you stretch it you like you want to have that minimal contact because then it's like a drum and there's nothing in contact with the canvas except that outer ridge and uh you know as you're painting and everything it you know keeps from i know i'm sure some of you have put paint on and then seen an outline where your brush kind of makes contact with another part of the stretcher bar other than that edge nice thing about this edge this ridge it's typically covered by the rabbit or the inner lip of a frame once it's all completed so leaves you with a nice clean looking product so if you can find something with a little ridge on it it's helpful but it's not mandatory but you can make uh make a stretcher bar with just about anything there's my two legs of 40 inches so now i'm going to make my two legs of 32 so i'm going to calibrate and set for 31 and 7 8. and if you're lucky you'll end up with this as your waist which is great we love that let's see so here's my other stick of molding if any of you want to buy any of this link molding from me uh just call me or email me i'll put all my contact details in the video description um but i can get you a link or heck i can make these for you too which is probably your best bet got all the equipment to do it but uh nevertheless if you need it let me know i can do it so let me see here make sure our air is working good all right now this thing is what's called an underpinner uh really sophisticated type of equipment it drives a wedge up into the miter right in here kind of like a 90 degree wedge it comes up what i'd recommend doing is in lieu of this machine um you can use some clamps to clamp this together with glue and then brad nail it maybe two on each side you know two going this way and then two going this way you don't need to do it at an angle you risk it coming out just go straight into the piece you're landing in for both legs and let that glue set glue is really important in a joint of any kind so make sure you get a good amount of glue you don't need a ton just enough that little dollop right there will squish out as you put the two pieces together but uh again you know regardless of what kind of equipment you have make sure that your planes are you know your legs aren't doing this or this make sure they're going out perfectly flat from each other where a clamp can really help you if you've got one but you know just the principle is the same no matter what kind of equipment you have good flat smooth planes and surfaces make for a good a good join sometimes on bigger stuff i'll even brad these if necessary but i don't think it'll be necessary on this piece and it's 32 by 40 so it's not a huge it's not a huge canvas on this last one i put glue on both sides because this one's going to come in here and you know once it's joined together here i can't put glue over there without kind of compromising these corners over here so your final corner and bingo we have a stretcher bar nice and smooth and flat and strong and once that dries that glue sets you got a really strong product right there um in the event that you don't have this piece of equipment right here the joiner again you can brad nail it you know with a gun like this you know pop pop pop all the way around all four corners need to be done like that uh and sometimes brads are just as strong as the these v wedges that i use you can see the what happens with these this equipment that i have over here see it's got these little like v wedges that just go into the material essentially the same thing all they do whether it's a brad nail or a v wedge uh it just holds it until the glue sets the glue is the most important part of the whole process all right and that's it um next step i'm going to pause the video for a minute or the the camera for a minute and the next step i'm going to show you once this sets is how to stretch a canvas that's a lot of fun but it's kind of challenging if you don't know what you're doing there are some tools required i'll get into that in a minute but the technique is really important but once you get the technique and know how to do it super simple can save you tons of money over the years stretching your own canvas then you can get custom sizes really do whatever you want uh it's it's it's it's great especially if you're an artist um you know it's good to do it yourself anyway see you in just a second