By Rafikul Sk A good chair seat is essential to keeping your home looking clean and stylish. While some people choose to buy new chairs, others are more satisfied with re-caning their own.
Traditional hand caning is woven between the chair frame and what looks like long, smooth pieces of wood called a spline. Antique chairs weren’t made in a factory, so their holes might not be evenly spaced. Check the holes in several places to get an average measurement.
1. Remove the Cane
Before chair caning repair, clean the chair seat. Cut away the old cane & save it for reference if you don’t have replacements. Use a knife to get rid of any glue left in the groove, then ice picks to remove the remaining cane webbing from the chair frame. Sand the inside edge of the opening so it’s slightly rounded (a sharp edge may cut the cane webbing).
Start by soaking the reed spline in hot water until it’s pliable. After the spline is softened, place a block of wood under the cane & tap it gently with a hammer. This will loosen & pry the cane & spline up from the groove on the seat frame.
When you can easily pry out the pressed cane, clean it up & wipe any excess water off with a towel. Line up the new cane in the front groove & remove any horizontal strands that extend past the inside edges of the groove.
2. Measure the Seat
Unlike an English saddle where you measure from the pommel button to the center of the cantle or a Western saddle where you measure from the top of the pommel straight back to the cantle, treeless chair seat sizes are measured from hole to hole. This type of weaving, called octagon or hand chair caning repair, is very labor intensive and creates a strong padded seat base.
A pressed cane, sometimes called cane webbing or machine woven cane, has a groove around the finished seat edge. This groove is held in place by a rounded spline (also known as a reed) that fits tight into the groove.
Take your soaked replacement cane out of the water and cut it to size so that it is slightly bigger than the chair seat. Find the wedges that came with the seat and use one to align the pressed cane in its groove.
3. Cut the Cane
Once the replacement cane seat is soaked, remove it from the water and cut it to size. Using the wooden wedges that should have been included with your new chair seat, wedge one in each of the four corner holes. This helps keep the cane from popping off during the weaving process.
Begin your chair caning repair by threading the long end of a strand over and under the front-to-back pairs (and the strand from STEP #5), and then around and under all the side-to-side pairs. Continue this pattern until you’ve reached the center hole on each side of the frame.
Once you reach the last center hole, cut the spline and use a box cutter or chisel to clean out the groove around the area. Apply wood glue to the back of the patch and press in place. Tuck the ends under the existing cane and add glue as necessary.
4. Thread the Cane
Wipe off any excess water from the pliable sheet of cane, then lay it over the seat frame and wedge it into place. The edges of the cane should cover the grooves completely and tuck in at least a half-inch on each side.
If your chair is a round seat, when you get to the pegged hole in the front rail on the top right of the chair, leave that strand long and go down into the next hole to the right. Continue down and up until you come to the corresponding hole in the back rail.
Start laying the second vertical strand of the repair cane chair in the opposite direction (from back to front) OVER STEP #1 and slightly to the right of it. Repeat this process all the way down and around, including in the front corners of the chair. Weave as tightly or loosely as you like for a particular look.
5. Weave the Cane
Start weaving in the strands, working from the center out. As you weave each strand be sure that the end is tucked under the warps of the chair seat and is not sticking out. The strands should be taught but not tight. This will help prevent sagging. Don’t put any cane in the corner holes at this time. These are used for the diagonals and should be completed in Steps 5 & 6.
Once you have all the strands woven, check that it looks correct. There may be minor weaving errors (fisheyes) that need to be corrected. It is best to do this before the cane is completely dry.
After the cane is finished, wipe off any excess glue and let it dry completely before using the chair. Once the cane is fully dry, you can apply a light coat of varnish or lacquer if desired. Be careful to only apply a light coating — too much can cause the repair cane chair to lose its elasticity.
6. Finish the Cane
If you’d like, you can stain the new chair seat after it dries. However, most clients find that leaving it alone allows the natural cane to darken over time to a lovely honey-brown color. You can also use high-oil content furniture polish products that contain lemon, orange, or mineral oils to stain the seat if you want.
Start with a sound chair frame with drilled holes free of old cane. Soak the new pre woven cane and spline in warm water for about 10 minutes until they’re soft and pliable.
Lay the cane sheet over the groove, shiny side up. Push it into the chair’s groove with a plastic spackle knife, working around the seat edge and making sure it is securely in place. Skip the corner holes at this point — they’ll be used later during STEPS #5 & #6. A small amount of glue may be needed to keep the cane in place if it seems loose.