How to Repair Caning on a Chair
Whether you are a novice DIYer or a seasoned pro, repairing caning on a chair is surprisingly easy. It can be a great way to chair caning repair near me a broken cane seat on an old chair without throwing it away.
To start, you’ll need to find a chair in good shape with holes drilled around the frame perimeter. This will allow you to see how the strands of cane are woven.
Removing the Old Cane
A ripped, broken, or sagging cane can be a big problem on a chair. But there are ways to repair chair caning near me if you’re willing to take the time and effort.
First, get rid of outdated materials. This is a great project for the do-it-yourselfer since it’s relatively simple and requires no special tools.
Before you begin, determine which cane is used on your chair. Some chair caning repair near me has hand-woven cane, while others have pressed cane.
If your chair has a pressed cane, you should be able to see a groove in the frame where the cane is attached. This is a good sign that it’s pressed cane and not hand-woven.
You will need to score around the outside and inside edges of the groove on either side of the reed spline that will be removed from the seat with your utility knife (with a new, sharp blade). This loosens any varnish or paint on the seat and helps loosen up any glue stuck in the groove.
Next, pry the spline up from inside the groove using your box cutter or a chisel. Do this gently, so you don’t damage the wood around the seat.
Once the spline is free from the seat, you will need to clean out any leftover cane and glue that’s still in the groove. This can be done by using a utility knife, hammer and chisel, or sandpaper.
After cleaning out the groove, it’s important to squirt some white vinegar or warm water into the groove so that any leftover cane and glue can soften up. Don’t let it overflow; wait a few hours to ensure the glue has loosened up.
Start installing
Now that you’ve cleaned the groove and prepared it for the new cane, you’re ready to start installing it! Then you can sit back and enjoy your new chair!
Once you’ve re-aligned the cane into the groove, press it in carefully using the wooden wedges that come with your replacement seat. It’s best to do this from the top and bottom of the seat, alternating sides so that you can keep everything nice and tight.
Installing the New Cane
There are a lot of vintage chairs that need chair caning repair near me, and one of the most common is the cane seat. These chairs usually are in great condition, but the cane is sagging, broken or flat-out ripped up and needs replacing.
Fortunately, it’s easy to replace a cane seat with a new one. The key is to install it correctly. The cane will then be taut and secure in the groove.
First, you’ll need to clean the old cane and remove it from the chair’s groove. If you have trouble removing the old cane and the spline that holds it in place, soak the area with warm water and distilled white vinegar. This will loosen up the adhesive and help you to pull it out with a hammer.
Piece of spline
Next, you’ll need to cut a piece of spline slightly larger than the opening in the caning on your chair. You can buy this spline in various widths, but it’s best to get a piece extending about an inch beyond the outer edge of the groove on all four sides.
Once you have your spline, cut it into pieces 3 inches long. Depending on the chair’s shape, you should cut it at 45-degree angles on both ends, so you have mitered corners at each corner.
Spline’s tip
Put the spline’s tip into the caning. At one of the rounded corners, mark and cut it to fit in the corners where the seat is sharp. Gently tap the spline into the groove with your hammer or mallet.
Next, you’ll need to press the new cane into the groove using a combination of wedges and hammering. Be sure to press the cane into the groove firmly so it doesn’t slide off the side. It would help if you rechecked the pattern before pressing further into the groove to make sure that it is running straight across and up and down the seat.
Gluing the Cane
Cane chairs, from the inexpensive flea market, find to the one-of-a-kind designer pieces, are a fascinating combination of artistry and strength. They are crafted from different sizes of cane strips woven together, usually onto a bamboo frame.
There are three main types of chair caning: hole cane, wide binding cane, and pressed cane. Hole cane, also called cane webbing, is a fabric-like material woven on a machine and looms into “sheets” or “panels.” It’s set into a groove around the chair’s seat and held in place with glue and a rattan spline.
Pressed cane, a type of “cane webbing,” is made by weaving individual cane strips on a mechanized loom into “sheets” or “panels.”
Clean
To chair caning repair near me a pressed cane seat, first, clean out the spline by removing all of the old splines. Then squirt some white vinegar and water into the groove, wait at least a half hour, then mop it up.
You should also sand the inside of the groove. This will help ensure that the spline stays firmly in place as you work along it.
Next, cut the spline to size using a utility knife or straight chisel. It should be about 2-4″ longer than needed for the groove.
Is your Spline complete?
If your spline is not completely flush, tap it into the groove with a hammer or mallet until it’s flush. You’ll be able to get the spline in slightly farther than flush when you’re working around the corners, but this is fine as long as it doesn’t look out of place.
Now, use a small amount of horse or white glue to attach the spline. Start in the center of the back or a corner and work your way around. You can alternate between left and right as you work or do the front & back sides at once.
Now you can start pressing the new cane into the groove. Press it in from top & bottom, alternating sides to keep it tight. You can leave some of the wedges in the groove to press the cane into more if you want. After this step, trim any excess cane in the groove to just below the outer edges of the groove.
Finishing the Job
If your chair has been damaged and needs refinishing, you will need to remove the old cane from the seat and back of the frame before you can start to repair it.
When repairing a chair caning repair near me, you need to ensure that the chair looks as good as possible, so you should make it a priority to get the job done right. The end result should look clean, cultured, and polished to give the chair a finished appearance that will attract attention.
Step
The first step in refinishing your chair is to remove the old cane from the seat or back of the frame using scissors and a utility knife.
- Once you have removed the old cane, sand the surfaces lightly with 220 paper and apply a couple of coats of black high-gloss enamel.
- Once the paint has dried, rub the surfaces with DuPont’s No. 7 Polishing Compound. This will help the paint to flow on and level out more effectively.
- Next, use a small amount of wood glue to attach the new cane over the old cane under the seat. This will ensure that the two pieces overlap and are not visible when you sit on the chair.
You will want to make sure that the new cane is long enough to cover the entire area of damage. You can unroll a bit of the new cane and hold it next to the area where you need to fix it so that you can measure how much it will need to be.
Conclusion
Using the same gauge of the caning used for the seat, weave a horizontal layer starting from the front-center hole and moving toward the bottom of the hole above it. Repeat this pattern until you have completed the horizontal layer.
Once you have woven the horizontal layer, you can move on to weaving in the diagonals. Do this for the front right and lower-left corners of the frame, and then continue to weave the diagonals in the upper left and upper right corners.
