What Is a Floater Frame? (Also Called a Floating Frame)

A floater frame is a frame made for a stretched canvas. Instead of the canvas sitting behind a lip, the way a print sits behind the lip of an ordinary frame, the canvas sits inside an open tray with a small gap running around all four edges. Nothing on the front of the painting is covered, and the bare sides of the canvas disappear. From across the room the canvas looks like it is floating inside the frame, which is where the name comes from.

You will hear it called a floater frame, a floating frame, a float frame or a canvas floater. They are all the same thing. Framers say floater; most people searching for one say floating frame. Either word gets you to the right product.

Why a canvas needs a different kind of frame

On a stretched canvas the painting usually runs right to the edge. Put that canvas in a traditional frame and the lip covers about a quarter inch of the artwork on all four sides. Some of the painting is simply gone.

The sides of a stretched canvas are also, more often than not, unfinished. The paint may stop at the front face and leave the wrapped edges white or bare, and on many canvases the staples are visible. You can hang a canvas like that on the wall by itself, and plenty of people do, but it reads as unfinished, a bit like tacking a poster up with push pins instead of framing it.

A floater frame solves both problems at once. The whole front of the painting stays visible, and the frame covers the raw edges. It gives a stretched canvas the finished, polished look that framing gives any other piece of art, without hiding any of it.

How a floater frame actually works

Hold one and it makes sense straight away. The frame is an L shape. One leg of the L lies flat against the wall; the other stands up and becomes the visible face of the frame. Your canvas is attached to the flat leg from behind, either with offset clips or with screws driven through the back of the frame into the wooden stretcher bars. The upright leg stands off to the side with a gap between it and the canvas.

That gap is the float space, sometimes just called the spacing. It is what creates the floating look, and you choose it when you order. Standard float space is 1/4" on all four sides, so the canvas sits centred with a quarter-inch gap top, bottom, left and right. You can ask for any spacing you like. The smallest we suggest is 1/8": if a canvas is slightly out of square, or the folds at the corners are thick, an eighth of an inch is what keeps it from binding. Some people ask for no gap at all. We do not advise it, because the risk of the canvas not fitting is real.

The other thing to get right is depth. You want the face of the canvas to sit close to flush with the top edge of the frame, ideally anywhere from flush to about 1/4" recessed. Flush looks the cleanest on a piece that is going straight onto a wall. If the piece will travel to shows, a slight recess of about 1/4" gives the paint surface a little protection, and your eye will barely notice it. In practice that means the frame depth should be within about a quarter inch of the canvas depth. A 1-1/2" canvas, for example, goes best in a 1-5/8" deep floater: enough room for the mounting and a hair of recess, not enough to look sunk. Our canvas depth guide walks through the depth question in detail.

How to measure for one

Measure the canvas at its thickest point, which is normally the corners where the canvas folds over the stretcher bar. Measure the depth the same way, at a corner, from the front of the paint to the back of the bar. Order the frame at your canvas size and pick the float space you want; the frame is made to your size with the gap already built in. Our mounting walkthrough and the videos show the whole process, from unboxing to hanging.

Floater frame or traditional frame?

The simple version: a floater frame is for a stretched canvas, and a traditional frame is for almost everything else.

A traditional frame holds glass or acrylic in front of the art. That is what makes it the right choice for a watercolor, a pastel, a photograph, a print, a drawing, anything on paper or anything that needs protection from dust, handling or UV. A floater frame has no glazing at all. There is nowhere for glass to go and no way to fit it. So a floater is the right choice for a stretched canvas and the wrong choice for anything that needs to sit behind glass.

Can you put a stretched canvas in a traditional frame? Yes, if the rabbet is deep enough, and some people prefer that look. The trade-off is the lip covering a quarter inch of the painting all the way round. A floater is the less versatile frame, since it really only suits things that can be shown without glass, but for the one job it was designed for it does what no traditional frame can. The floater vs traditional frame page goes through the comparison side by side.

What can and cannot go in a floater

A stretched canvas is the obvious answer and the easiest thing to mount. Beyond that, the rule is that the artwork has to be stiff enough to be screwed or clipped to the back of the frame, and it has to be something you are happy to show without glass.

• Cradled panels of any height work well and mount the same way a canvas does.
• Art mounted on board or metal works too. Because these are usually thin, you generally need to build up the back so the face of the piece comes up close to flush with the front of the frame, rather than sitting at the bottom of a deep tray.
• Paper only works if it is first mounted to something rigid, and only if you are comfortable with it being unglazed.
• Anything that needs glass cannot go in a floater: watercolors, pastels, photographs, documents, anything that needs UV protection.

We have seen genuinely unusual things in floaters, including a sheet of aluminum mounted to the back of the frame with three-dimensional pieces built up off it. If it is rigid and it can be fastened from behind, it can probably be floated.

Does a floater frame need glass, and does it protect the canvas?

No glass, no acrylic, no glazing of any kind. It is not needed and it is not possible on a floater.

As for protection: the frame protects the edges of the canvas, provided the depth is right. If the frame is as deep as the canvas or slightly deeper, the wood fully covers the sides and the corners, which are the parts most likely to get knocked. Order a 1" deep floater for a 1-1/2" canvas and it will neither protect the edges nor look right.

What people get wrong

• Expecting glass. People picture a frame as several parts, glass included, and ask how the glass attaches. On a floater there is none.
• Not thinking about depth. The canvas depth and the frame depth have to be close, or the canvas has to be built up from behind. A canvas sitting well below the face of the frame looks wrong.
• Not knowing what the gap is for or how big to make it. The float space is a choice you make when ordering, and 1/4" is the usual answer.
• Not knowing how to mount it. The frame arrives ready for the canvas; you attach the canvas from behind, and spacing it evenly while you do is the only fiddly part. The offset clip guide covers it.

Solid wood, veneer, or both?

This comes up on the phone more than you would think, and the answer can honestly be both. Solid wood describes what the frame is made of. Veneer describes a type of finish on the surface. All of our floater frames are solid wood. Some are finished with paint or stain, and some carry a veneer finish, which gives a very consistent grain and color from frame to frame. A veneer-finished floater is still a solid wood frame underneath.

What comes with the frame

Every floater frame is made in our Clearwater, Florida shop to the size on your order and shipped anywhere in the lower 48. On the product page you can order the frame on its own, or the frame with hardware: a kit of eight offset clips and screws in the size that particular floater takes. Clips are also sold individually and in bulk under hardware, along with hangers and wire. Above a certain size the box is too large for a parcel carrier, so a floater ships ready to assemble at no extra cost, or fully assembled by freight if you prefer; the video shows how quick the assembly is. Browse the full range under floater frames, or by canvas depth under canvas floater frames.