Hi Peter, It is a very long time since I caned a chair but here is essentially the trick.
You count the holes around the chair, the number should be divisible by 4. from there you treat it like a square chair, that is you find the center at the top and at the bottom as a convenient place to start. Let us assume 60 holes. subtract 4, one for each corner leaving 56 holes. Divide this by 4 and you have 14 holes per side so to speak. In this case your hole won't be the center as it would be for a 64 hole chair but the process is about the same. Count around the chair to locate what you would use as the corner holes. These are only used for the third and sixth strokes. Knowing your left corner holes begin one hole right of the corner pushing a length of cane down into it and pegging it firmly into place. I used to leave a few inches length, one will ultimately trim that off later. The first stroke runs vertically, pull the cane down to the corresponding hole at the bottom just right of the bottom left corner hole, push it down then back up the next hole to the right, back up to the top, through that hole and back up to the right and so on until you have a series of really tight rows running front to back of the chair and finishing at the last hole before the right corner. This is the first stroke. Second stroke is the same only going across from left to right and laying over the first stroke again not using the corner holes. The third stroke starts in the corner hole, we will use the top left. These go diagonally and tie the first and second strokes together so the cane comes up out of the corner hole, over the second stroke and under the first all along until it passes through the bottom right corner hole. You continue this pattern until you reach each corner. Are we having fun yet? Now the forth stroke is just like the first. It lies over all of the rest of the cane to this point and runs front to back. The fifth stroke is a little more difficult, like the second it goes side-to-side and it ties the forth stroke to the other cane. As memory serves you will pull the forth stroke to the right and pass the fifth over it and under first and third. Again you don't use the corner holes. Finally there is the sixth stroke. Here I am getting a little vague in my memory, you work the diagonal, opposite to the third stroke beginning in the corner. I am pretty sure it goes under the front-to-back strokes, that is the first and fourth strokes and over the side-to-side strokes, that is the second and fifth strokes. You pull each row as tight as you can an peg it until you have finished the next row then move your peg. Keep the cane wet for best pliability When you run out of a length of cane you can tie it but that gets bulky, usually force it under a couple at the underside of the chair to splice it in. Then you do what we used to call the binding. This is a wider piece of cane, you push the ends down the corners and pull it tight and peg it then with finer cane you tie the binding down. Every second hole you push the finer cane up and wrap it around the binding cane and pull it back down the same hole pulling it very tight. You will certainly want to peg that first piece from the bottom and probably all of the binding loops to keep them really tight. Go all around the chair to finish the edges nicely. I hope I got all of this correct, doubtless Lee or maybe Armando who I know did a load of caning years ago too will set me right. ----- Original Message ----- From: Peter Mikochik To: [email protected] Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 1:36 PM Subject: [BlindHandyMan] basic chair caning hi list i've got some chairs with a simple round seat. the caning is shot. i've been looking it up on the web, but not finding descriptions of the process. these seem not to be the glue and spline chairs, but a groove with about 60 holes. can anyone explain a simple beginner pattern and the necessary items. thanks [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
