Purpose: To produce a functioning, long-lasting art canvas frame capable of withstanding immoderate physical stress that is also free of metals, rubbers, nails, or tacks of any sort. The build-up would consist entirely of non-moving wooden parts, including dowelling rather than nails to hold the mortises. This design will allow for an everlasting canvas -- free of rust or erosion.

Click here to see how I began the planning process.

The Planning Process

Planning began with several Sketch-Up drawings and was incrementally tested and changed. The design originally called for a four-toothed mortise and tenon joint dowelled into place (1/4") on each of four fittings.

Overhead view of mortise and tenon. Note: two tails cut at 45° angles.

The pair coupled and dowelled

Method

While the design was pretty straight-forward, there were elements that proved themselves quite difficult.

Cutting a double-wide ridge for the wood-spline. I had to build two special sleds and pre-process each piece of stock for this element alone.

I had to upgrade my drill-press as the original kept chewing through the stock at the tips of the 45° tongues.

Even after a clean plane, imperfections were still present. I needed to build ANOTHER custom table-saw sled in order to ensure uniformity.

A 13.5° grade was pre-processed into each 2x2x10'. Again, another sled was built to ensure uniformity in the build.

Ultimately, four unique sleds were built to ensure uniformity in each unit. This is, needless to say, WAY too tedious a process to complete per unit. While the proof of concept exceeded my expectations, I'll be putting this one on the shelf until I can afford some real equiptment (M&T sockets, Decent Drill Press, Industry Grade Table)!

Ivori Canvas Frame by Matthew Cavanagh is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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