Back to the Chairs

 I have been spending time in the workshop recaning more chairs.  I've now done chairs #4 and #5.  #4 is the fourth chair of our existing set of seven, and #5 is the $2 chair from the Tale of Four Chairs.  

When I flipped #5 over to knock the old seat out of it I realized that someone had been repairing on it in the distant past.  It had some big ole screws, and worse, glue in the holes.

Oh Crap!

Luckily the glue drilled out without too much trouble.  And in the end, it turned out to be the best caning job I've done yet.  The chairs I've done so far has been functional enough, but from a skilled craftsman's point of view, they all had some errors in them.  The true skill in weaving a cane seat is not in getting the basic weave right - the skill is in locking the cane into the edges in the strongest possible way.  It's in the choice of holes.  If you make the correct choices, you end up with neat little Xs all along the edges.  If you make incorrect choices, you end up with Vs.  Or even worse - Ks!

Chair #4 had too many Vs along the top and bottom.

And Ks along the left side.

Chair 5  Not perfect, but much better

When you are learning, telling the difference between Xs and Vs is like looking at an Escher print and figuring out if the stairs go up or down. 

Midway through chair four I was frustrated enough to set it next to me and start chair five with better choices.  And it turned out right.  A breakthrough!  Can you see the difference?

Upside down Vs

Each strand needs to go one hole over.

Perfect Xs

Again with the Vs

Xs!

And the right side turned out well too.

The left edge is still a little rough, but I'm not sure why.

As it turns out, there are many different shapes of chair seats from square to round and every thing in between.  What I have are "harp shaped" seats and, of course, those are more challenging than others.

Lucky me.

I have one more of our original seven that is beginning to tear.  I should probably go ahead and replace it now.  And that leaves me with one odd chair with a round seat.  I think I will try a different pattern on that.  Maybe stars.  Or daisies and buttons.