subject: Heavy duty stretcher bars – A Brief [print this page] A canvas is often gessoed or polished to smoothen the surface. A gesso is a traditional type of primer used by artists. Some heavy duty stretchers are available for sale in the market that can be used by an artist to stretch canvas without causing him much trouble for printing to canvas. They can easily smooth out any creases and provide uniform, smooth and tight canvas in about 3 minutes or so and are extremely popular with the artists who want to straightaway devote their energies on painting rather than stretching a bulky canvas. The professional quality canvas stretchers can also make gallery wraps and it is considered more artistic than the machine generated stretching.