Stretching Long, Narrow Canvas

[Shayla]

We've stretched a couple of big canvases before (i.e. 7 x 10'), but never a long, skinny one.
It'll have a 1" deep stretcher frame, and is 16 x 78". We always do a pre-stretch with steel
tacks the day before, and our stretching machine can do bites. Any advice, about this critter?

 

[wpfay]

Never having done one quite that shape, I would tend to pre-stretch the long side in advance, and not worry so much about the short side, then go from there.
I stretch by hand, so I don't know how the dynamics of a machine might change your approach.

 

[Greg Fremstad]

You should get custom "keyed" stretcher bars made with several keyable cross braces.