MEEDENExtra Large Heavy-Duty H-Frame Studio Easel - Solid Beech Wooden Artist Professional Easel, Painting Art Easel Stand with 4 Premium Locking Silent Caster Wheels, Hold Max 82"

Very decent, sturdy, and large easel for the price. Assembly took me about an hour - there was one wrong bolt in my package (rounded end instead of hex nut end). Tools are included but fairly useless. Quite a few of the tensioners work via friction: not sure how well they will hold up long term. There is a limit on how high the lower receiver can be raised, which means that you can't really use small canvasses unless you are willing to sit close to the ground. I love the fact that it can be made to lie horizontal (useful for water based media - probably irrelevant to oil painters). Doesn't wobble when pushing it around. Wood is nice quality. Package is quite heavy, fyi.

You have to put this together. Instructions are clear and each piece goes together perfectly. All hardware and supplies were clearly labeled. Functionality of product is awesome! Lays flat and tilts easily. Nice wood. Heavy and sturdy. Casters make it easy to move. Make sure you have a high ceiling. This product gets super tall. Just what I was looking for. Great value for money and great quality.

I was hesitant to pull the trigger based on the high (but not *that* high) price relative to others in the category, but this easel is genuinely excellent, in fact surprisingly so. It's HEAVY and extremely solid. The wood is nicely finished, dense, and feels very substantial. The whole device is simple to operate but cleverly designed.It was well-packaged and the wood pieces are wrapped to prevent scratches. Assembly was straightforward and the manual is well thought-out: each wood piece has a number sticker and each metal assembly piece group comes in a lettered bag that corresponds to a step in the manual. It was very simple, just a tip would be to pay careful attention because it doesn't prompt you to flip pieces before certain steps in the way Ikea does. Just look closely to make sure your orientation matches the manual (hole and screw positions included) and you'll be gucci.The wheels are a soft rubberized material and they come on heavy mounts with visible ball bearings, which will be easy to re-lubricate later on. The movement from upright to flat is fluid and easy to do, and it's easy to adjust along the way. Even with the 5'x7' canvas I immediately loaded in, it's easy to maneuver and manipulate the various adjustments.Honestly I think this thing will easily last a lifetime; it's well-designed, well-made, and worth every cent.

It’s solid. The edges are chamfered, all edges. Everything’s accurately machined and pre-drilled. Separate bags for hardware, clearly marked. They even provided screwdrivers! Well packed and protected. Did I say solid? Solid. I love it. Works great. Simple instructions.WHAT TO WATCH FOR DURING ASSEMBLYYou can go wrong During assembly, even if you think you’re following the instructions to a tee. Here’s where you can go wrong.In step 6 you can assemble rails 10 and 11 reversed. The clues you need to avoid the problem aren’t shown because you’re attaching the rails to step 5, but the (step 5 assembly) has been flipped over to show where the barrel nuts go, and the clues you need are now hidden on the other side. You’ll assemble step 6, it’ll look good, it’ll be solid, and you won’t notice a problem until step 12, when you realize you have to disassemble everything to get back to step 6 and switch rails 10 and 11. I ran into four rounds of disassembly-reassembly. A witness mark, that’s a line on the bottom of item 9 connecting to either item 10 or 11 in the proper orientation, would have helped me avoid every problem I encountered and made the assembly a breeze.I’d buy it again and recommend it to a friend. It’s a fabulous product.

This could easily be a 5-star easel but...there are a few issues.The easel is actually a really good easel, and I am glad I got it but I was disappointed with the process. It is very sturdy and was pretty easy to put together, but the shipping/packaging needs some work. No, the shipping and packaging needs a ton of work.The box came damaged with a gaping hole in the side. This could be a UPS issue though so I'm not putting that one on Meeden. The packaging however, was 100% Meeden.I opened the damaged box only to find that several pieces were not even wrapped in bubble wrap and that the pieces looked like they were just thrown in the box. At the very least, the pieces should have been wire tied or strapped together to prevent movement during shipping, but there was nothing of the sort so I ended up with a few parts that were dinged, nothing major but still should never have been like that. Trying not to make a big deal out of it, but when you pay this much for an easel it should be in perfect condition and the packaging should certainly be better than what I received.After a call to Amazon, they offered to have UPS pick it up for free. To the credit of Amazon, the customer rep did try to help out the best they could, but a replacement would take an extended period of time so I decided to give this one a try and put it together anyway. If it didn't work out, I still had the option of the return process, so that was a plus.Putting it together was pretty easy. However, I came across three issues. I was putting a caster on one of the legs, the top of the screw sheared off so only three screws are holding the caster on. The three seem secure so no biggie there. Wouldn't you know it, the same thing happened on the very last caster on the second leg. The head sheared off one of the screws and now there is a caster on each leg with only three screws holding them on. The casters seemed secure but that should never have happened. I think I just got two wonky screws, but I haven’t had any problems with the casters so far.The center long support rail that attaches to the canvas support shelf (the canvas support that has brush storage)- the 4 predrilled screw holes that attach the rail were too large and the screws just slipped out and could not be tightened. Bad manufacturing there but again no biggie. I ended up using four small pocket hole screws slightly larger than the one provided to attach it, made sure they were flat so it could still move up and down and it ended up being super secure. Just glad I have an assortment of hardware like that in my garage.I contacted the company through their website (didn't see any way to contact the company through Amazon's website) and asked for replacement parts for the legs where the caster screws sheared off. They emailed me back rather quickly and asked for photos. I sent them but haven't heard anything yet.I know stuff like this happens and I could have sent the whole thing back, but I honestly really like my easel and the return process is a pain, especially having to repackage such a damaged box.Overall, the easel is actually a really good easel aside from the issues I pointed out. Packaging on my easel was horrid, but you may not experience the same. Just know you can return it. Be very careful with the screws on the casters when you install them.The assembly is pretty simple, just lay the parts out along with the screws/hardware and just follow the picture directions.Just a few other things to consider: This easel is very tall, even at the lowest setting.It is very substantial, meaning it really isn't cheaply made and the wood is heavy. Although not oak, it certainly feels similar in strength.The knobs work great, tighten everything down and it won't move at all. I was worried about canvas wobble, but this is really secure and I haven’t had any canvas wobble or easel wobble at all.You can make it lay flat (horizontal), which turns it into a sort of table for a canvas. I thought that was a pretty interesting and neat feature. Not sure I'd use that much but it is still pretty cool. If you are doing some sort of pouring technique this would be a very useful feature. It might also be a good feature for priming a canvas.This easel looks fantastic, and I would love to give it a 5 star, but the packaging and delivery just ruined the experience. I can even overlook the caster issue but just can't overlook the packaging and delivery issues.Final thoughts: I would certainly buy this easel again and I know my easel will last a very long time. It looks fantastic and makes my home studio complete.

Really beautiful and high quality. Easy assembly but it took probably an hour and a half. The dark wood option isn’t as dark as I was expecting it to be but that’s okay.