16oz. Spray Tight'n'Up Canvas Retensioner

16oz. Spray Tight'n'Up™ Liquid Canvas Retensioner Tight-16S

Variations in temperature and humidity and often cause stretched canvases or painting to gain or lose tension. In dry climates, wood can wick away moisture and shrink, and with a lack of humidity, the canvas can slacken. Tight'n'Up™ Liquid Canvas Retensioner is an effective method to increase the tension of a natural fiber stretched canvas. It's so clever, it earned us a patent! It allows you to tighten-up a loose canvas without having to re-stretch it. It may be applied before or after painting. Tight'n'Up™ is an acid free and archival material and will not harm the paints on your painting.

Tight'n'Up™ Liquid Canvas Retensioner works best on cotton, linen, and other natural fiber canvases. It solves the age old problem of how to repair a loose stretched canvas! The most common method to re-tension a loose canvas is to hammer wedges into the inside corners of the stretcher frame, thereby expanding the stretcher frame. This can sometimes create issues if the canvas is inside a decorative frame, as you may need to expand the canvas frame more than the decorative frame will allow. Although water is commonly used to tighten canvas, the tension is maintained only as long as the canvas is wet. When the water dries, it leaves the canvas just as loose or even looser than when you started. In our own study using precision canvas testing instruments and proven this to be true.

Tight'n'Up™ solves most all of the typical canvas tension problems. It removes or improves any previous sagging, wrinkles, or ripples in the canvas, leaving the canvas flat and tight. Tight'n'Up™ dries clear so it will not affect the look of the piece. The more you apply, the tighter your canvas becomes. You may apply it once, and then apply it again in the future.

Simply brush or spray Tight'n'Up™ to the back of a painted or unpainted stretched canvas. The water in the solution causes the canvas threads to swell up, thereby shrinking their length, consequently tightening the canvas. Acrylic binders in the Tight'n'Up™ seep in inside the fabric's threads and fibers, and provide extra support to the canvas. When the water evaporates, the acrylic remains in the fabric and prevents the fabric from relaxing to its previously loosened state, thereby retaining the increased tension.

Tight'n'Up™ may be applied to the entire back surface of the canvas, but it is best applied only to the problem areas. We always recommend applying a small amount by spray and then brushing it into the canvas fibers. Do not saturate the canvas, so as the liquid runs or drips, as this could cause lines of increased tension. It is best to apply a general mist and then brush, or simply brush it into the canvas and, if needed, under the stretcher bars.

We recommend caution if applying to an oil primed canvas, as this is an acrylic-water based solution, and therefore dissimilar to oil prepared canvas. Use on oil prepared canvas at your own risk, although many artists have reported no problems in doing so. Before re-stretching a loose canvas, first apply Tight'n'Up™ to solve the problem once and for all!