Comments about Blick Studio Convertible Studio Easel:

I bought this easel in hopes it's versatility for different media (oil/acrylic, pastel, watercolor, etc.) will work for me. It appears to be a new version of the easel at a better price point.

The easel arrived on time and the box survived shipping just fine. Opened it up and there was another box inside that contained the easel itself. This was also intact. The packing was a little loose (you could hear things moving in the box) but all the major pieces were well placed, wrapped in foam sheets, and were in good condition.

All of the hardware was in one big ziplock bag and individual pieces were in seperate bags, each labeled with a part letter (A, B, C, etc.) There was a color instruction sheet as well that was clearly printed, well written, and fairly well illustrated with photos of the assembly steps.

The total assembly took less than 30 minutes and following the instructions provided, step by step, resulted in a good build. There are a couple of things to look for:

1. The main easel base comes pre-assembled and mine had the tension knobs on backwards (instead of being on the outside of the frame they were on the inside. This will keep the easel from folding fully and may limit adjustments.
2. The tension knob that attaches the support bar to the frame also needs to be positioned properly or it will impede folding.
3. I needed to tighten all of the screws holding the base and easel together. They were sufficiently tight to hold everything together snuggly but loose enough that the easel wobbled a bit. It will take an allen wrench and you don't want to over tighten them, but once done the easel is very solid.

All in all, at first glance, this looks to be an awesome deal. Great price, easy assembly, versatile easel, and compact enough it can be stored away with ease. I've already got a couple projects lined up to put it to use. I'll follow up after those with some observations of the easel in use.