CHAPTER 1
To begin, I’m going to outline what you will need in terms of tools and materials to cane your first chair. It is a relatively simple kit and once you have acquired the cane and a few of the tools listed, all you would need to find is a small wooden chair designed to have a woven cane panel for its seat or back. These chairs are not hard to find; characteristically it would be a simple wooden frame and all four of the seat rails would have spaced holes sized approximately 4–5mm wide drilled through them. The size of the holes and spacing can vary from chair to chair.
Cane panels and tools.
The chair cane can be bought from two or three specialist suppliers here in the UK. I’d really recommend using one of these stockists as they are used to sourcing the best quality cane – it would be a shame to spend all the time and effort of weaving a chair seat for it not to last due to inferior materials. If the cane isn’t of good quality, it may prove harder to work with as it will split and snap.
The tool kit required for caning chairs isn’t vast. As you can see from the list below, a few specialised tools are all you need to begin. You may already have similar tools at home; many chair caners use repurposed household items in their kits. One chair caner I knew just liked to use a small metal nail file with a hooked end. I keep a selection of different size blunt nails for use as hole clearers and have various handmade shell bodkins, as a range of sizes of tools is useful for the variety of hole sizes on the cane chair frame.
All the tools are items which you could find at a local hardware shop or one of the chair cane supply shops. Don’t worry if you are having any trouble sourcing tools, I find that my own fingers are the most used of all the tools I have at my disposal!
TOOLS
Hole clearer – for clearing the old cane and pegs from the drilled holes in the chair frame. A blunt nail would also work for this job.
Bodkin – a real go-to tool, useful for moving cane around and opening space to weave. Bodkins are a tool used in many industries; any small metal pointed tool would do for this job.
Shell bodkin – a bodkin which is slightly curved and has a valley in the centre. This is a tool specifically used by chair caners.
Side cutters – a sharp set of pliers with one flat side, for making close cuts.
Hammer – a light hammer is most suitable for tapping in pegs.
Wooden mallet – i