|
Hi Enzie,
Yes, use additional weight(s) as your canvas get heavier. The largest weight supplied is 25 pounds. That 25lb. weight should always hang on the "short" side of the weight hook. Because it counterbalances the entire assembly plus the additional weight of a smaller canvas it always remains in use.
Somewhere around the size of an 18x24 or so, depending on whether you're using light vs. heavy stretcher bars vs. 1/4" panel, etc., you'll notice that the easel starts getting a little heavier to lift or that it wants to drift down a little of its own accord. That's the time to add the 5 pound weight to the "long" side of the weight hook.
As you get to progressively larger/heavier canvases, you would pull off the 5 pound weight and add the 10 pound weight instead to keep things approximately compensated so that the whole easel continues to be balanced between drifting up or down. For even larger paintings, you would add the 5 pound weight back onto the long side of the hook. If even that's not enough, you can either buy additional weights at a sporting goods store, or perhaps just hang a bucket from the weight hook and add stuff (rocks, paint cans, phone books???) until everything is balanced again.
In practice it's not too finicky; you can do a wide range of canvas sizes without changing the weights. There is enough friction in the entire mechanism to keep things where you put them. As I approach needing to add or reduce weight, I first tend to slightly tighten a knob or two on the paint tray to increase the friction or "drag" a little bit until the canvas remains where I want it.
|