How to Match Canvas Depth to a Floater Frame

Framing a stretched canvas in a floater frame comes down to one measurement, and it is not the height or the width. It is the depth: how thick your canvas is from the front of the paint to the back of the stretcher bar. That number decides which frames you can use, and it works in one direction only. A floater deeper than your canvas can be made to look right. A floater shallower than your canvas cannot be made to look right at all.

This page is the rule. Where the face of the canvas should land, how to measure so the frame actually fits when it arrives, and what to do when the profile you want is deeper than the piece you are holding. If you already know your depth and you just want to look at frames, start with floater frames for stretched canvas or the full range on floater frames.

One note on words before we start. The trade calls these floater frames. Plenty of customers call them floating frames, and they mean the same thing. The depth we are matching to is the rabbet depth, the inside depth of the tray the canvas drops into.

The rule, in one line

Take the rabbet depth of the floater and subtract your canvas depth. What is left is the recess: how far the face of your canvas sits behind the face of the frame.

• Less than zero. Your canvas is deeper than the frame and stands proud of the face. This one is out. There is no workaround.
• Zero to about 1/4". The designed match. Flush, or a hair recessed. This is what a floater is built to do.
• About 1/4" to 1/2". Still works. The canvas sits a little deep, and half an inch is the absolute most we would accept on a piece that needs to look finished.
• More than 1/2". The frame can still be the right frame, but you will need to build up the backside of the canvas to bring its face forward. That is a real job, not a footnote, and it has its own section below.

Why a proud canvas is a hard no

Say you have a 2" deep canvas and you love the look of a 1-5/8" floater. Install it and the canvas stands out past the face of the frame by nearly half an inch. It does not read as a finished, professional piece of framing. It does not protect the artwork in any way. And it puts the sides of the canvas on full display, which is a problem because the sides usually are not finished: the image rarely wraps them, and there are often staples along them. None of that is how a floater is meant to be used.

There is no modification that fixes it either. We cannot take depth off a canvas and keep the artwork safe, secure and mountable. The depth of your canvas dictates which frames you can use. If your canvas is deeper than the profile you fell for, the honest answer is a different profile, and we would rather tell you that than sell you the one you wanted.

Where the face of the canvas should land

Flush with the face of the frame, or recessed up to about a quarter inch. That is the target, and it is the look that reads as finished. A half inch of recess is the very most we would go to and still call it clean. Past that the piece starts to look like it is sitting at the bottom of a box, and you lose the modern, deliberate look you bought the floater for in the first place.

How strictly you hold that line depends on what the piece is for. If you are framing something for your own wall, more than a quarter inch of recess is a personal style call. If you like it, it is fine. If the piece is going into a gallery, into a show, or up for sale, keep it inside a quarter inch, and that goes double for anything where you have built up the back.

What it looks like from the side

Stand off to one side of a well-matched floater-framed canvas, at eye level with the frame. You see the face of the wood first, then the band of open air that is the float gap, then the edge of the canvas sitting level with the wood or just barely behind it. What you should not see is the canvas edge rising above the frame, and you should not be looking down into a deep tray with the painting at the bottom of it. Those are the two ends of the depth rule, and a side view shows both of them instantly.

How to measure your canvas

Two separate measurements, and both of them get taken in more than one place. The depth tells you which floaters can hold your canvas. The height and width tell us what size to build.

Depth: use the tallest number you find

Measure from the front of the canvas to the back of the stretcher bar. Take it in the middle of a side, then take it again at the corners, because the corners are where it changes. When a canvas is stretched, the material gets folded over at the corners and often wrapped underneath the stretcher bar, and that fold can make the corner slightly taller than the middle.

Whatever the tallest measurement is, that is your canvas depth. Use it. An eighth of an inch sounds like nothing, but if the corners are an eighth taller than the middle and you order a floater with exactly the same depth as your middle measurement, that eighth of an inch lifts the whole canvas and it ends up sitting proud of the frame. Same mistake as the 2" canvas in the 1-5/8" floater, just sneakier.

Height and width: use the largest number you find

Same principle, different axis. Do not measure only from the middle of the top to the middle of the bottom. That is usually the narrowest part of the canvas. Measure out at the corners as well, because depending on how the canvas was stretched, the folds can make it a smidge larger out there, and that applies to both the height and the width.

This is the single most common reason a frame arrives and the canvas does not go in. Someone measures center to center, picks a small float gap or no gap at all, we build the frame to exactly the dimensions on the order, and then the corner folds turn out to be wider than the middle. The frame is right and the canvas still does not fit. Measure at the widest point, every time, and give us that number.

The float gap

The float gap is the open space between the edge of your canvas and the inside of the frame. It is what creates the floating look the frame is named for. It is set by the opening we build, not by anything you adjust later, so it is a decision you make on the order.

• 1/4" on all four sides is the standard and what we suggest unless you have a reason to go another way.
• 1/2" if you want a wider, more deliberate band of shadow around the piece.
• 1/8" if you want it tight. This is where measuring at the widest point stops being advice and becomes the whole job, because a corner fold can easily be an eighth of an inch wider than the middle, and that alone can eat the gap.

What actually comes through the shop

We see every canvas depth there is, but the mix is lopsided:

• 1-1/2" is the most common by a good margin. It is why most of our floater range is built around it.
• 3/4" to 7/8" is second. Very typical, and well covered.
• 2" gallery wraps exist. We have a handful of frames deep enough, but this is not the common case.
• Cradled boards and panels come in constantly. For those, take the shortest floater you can get and build up the back if you need to, depending on how thick the piece actually is.

Counted against the floaters we stock right now, here is how much choice each depth has. A 3/4" canvas has 16 profiles that fit with no build-up, plus 38 more that work if you raise the canvas. A 7/8" canvas, 13 with no build-up and 36 more. A 1-1/2" canvas, 28 with no build-up and 6 more. A 2" canvas, 6, with nothing deeper to build up into. If your canvas is deeper than 2", call us before you plan around a floater; the range changes, and we would rather check the rack than have you guess.

Two things fall out of that. A 1-1/2" canvas is the easy case. A 3/4" canvas has a short list if you insist on a perfect depth match, and a much longer list the moment you are willing to build up the back.

Building up the back of a thin canvas

This is the fix for the other direction: a canvas that is shallower than the frame you want. The job is to raise the canvas inside the frame so its face comes forward and sits nearly flush with the face of the floater. A quarter-inch panel in a 1" floater needs this. A quarter-inch panel in a 1-1/2" floater needs it badly.

Worth saying plainly: framers use the word spacer for something else entirely in traditional framing, so we do not use it for this. What you are doing is building up the backside of the canvas, or raising the canvas. Same thing, clearer name.

There is no single correct method. It depends on how far you have to come forward, and there are several honest ways to get there:

• A taller offset clip, if you must. The clip steps back from the frame ledge to the canvas, so a taller one lifts the back of the canvas toward the face of the frame. We do not encourage it: offset clips are made to sit flush on the floater ledge and screw straight into the stretcher bar, and a clip doing double duty as a riser is a weaker mount. If you go this way, individual clips in each size are on the hardware page.
• Slats of wood. Small strips from a local hardware store, built up off the back of the floater itself, or added on top of a raised clip to come forward further.
• Foam board. People use it and it works.

An example of the math. A 1/4" thick canvas going into a 1" floater: build the backside up at least 1/2", and 3/4" would not be too much, so that the face of the canvas ends up almost flush with the face of the frame. Aim for that quarter-inch recess at the most.

Two practical points. We do not sell or include anything for raising the back, so this is a hardware store trip and your own build. And building up changes how you fasten the canvas, because the back of the canvas is no longer sitting where a standard clip or screw expects it. Work out the fastening and the build-up together, not one after the other. If you want to talk it through before you order, call 727-572-4064.

Mounting, once the depths match

Two methods cover almost everything, and both of them are your job, not ours. We do not handle artwork here, so the frame arrives and you install the canvas.

• Offset clips. The clip screws to the flat back ledge of the frame, steps across the back of the canvas, and takes a screw into the stretcher bar. Reversible, and the canvas comes back out later if you want it to.
• A screw through the back of the frame into the wooden part of the stretcher bar. Solid and more permanent.

If you are using clips, the size you need is not about your canvas. It is about the frame. The back piece of the L, the flat part the canvas fastens to and the part that sits against the wall, is a different thickness from one floater to another depending on who made the moulding. Sometimes it is 3/8", sometimes it is 1/2". That thickness is what the clip has to clear. Every floater frame on our site lists the offset clip size that works with that profile, so read it off the product page rather than guessing, and call us if the listing is not clear. We stock 1/4", 3/8" and 1/2" clips in the hardware collection.

On the frame's page you pick frame only or the complete kit, which adds hanging hardware. Offset clips are in the hardware collection either way.

Still not sure what you are holding?

Measure the depth at the corners, use the tallest number, and either match it or go deeper and build up. If the number lands somewhere awkward, or you are looking at a panel and not a stretched canvas, call 727-572-4064 with the piece in front of you, or send us the measurements. It is a two-minute conversation and it is cheaper than a frame that does not fit.

Related

• Floater frames for stretched canvas
• All floater frames
• Floater frame vs traditional frame
• Framing tutorial videos
• Frequently asked questions
• Picture frame glass and acrylic compared, if what you are framing is on paper rather than canvas. Floater frames take no glazing at all.