The Art of Caning
Chair Caning is a traditional means of seating wooden chairs by way of weaving
cane in a star pattern. Cane is a standard term for the outer edge of rattan.
Rattan is used for wicker furniture, basket making, lashing, and seating.
Rattan is pithy in consistency, and fairly soft, while its outer edge,
removed in processing is more like bamboo having a smooth finish to its
outter edge. Cane varies from white when new to dark yellow when aged only
a few mouths. Cane is strong as an individual piece but even stronger when
applied to a seat in a woven pattern. Can is used to basket making, lashing,
edge weaves, seating or woven patterns for decoration.
Seating Methods
The different ways cane can be utilized as a seating method very drastically,
and a number of weaves can be implemented to replace a seat. But there is a
standard star patter which works well in any utilitarian seating application.
Cane is woven through holes by hand, or is pre woven into sheets.
This is either nailed to chairs, or (more traditionally) is attached by means
of groove & spline. This is covered in its three step process as part of this
tutorial but mainly we will be covering “hand caning.”
Hand Caning
Hand Caning is a nine step process involving chairs with wholes drilled of which
cane is woven through. The cane is woven through the holes in a back to front,
left to right, back to front overlapping, left to right overlapping, back to front
overlapping, left to right, over and under, left corner to right back over and under,
and finally right front to left back over any under. All these steps are covered
in the navigational menu on the left below the logo. I have given nine textual
descriptions of the process supplemented with thorough photographic depiction of
each step of the process. Have fun!