Tuesday, July 09, 2013

How we restore cane seated chairs in Bergere cane work. Part 1.

Some of you will already know that Luis restores cane and rush chairs. He learnt how to do it whilst in the UK and has continued both skills out here in Asturias. We brought a large stock of old chairs from the UK to Spain in anticipation of continuing demonstrations and restoration work.

Iris Publishing Ltd. MCMXCII




This pair of chairs we purchased at Newark Antique fair a few years ago, probably about £10 for both if that. As you can see they had been altered some years ago when the original cane seat was damaged. In the 20's, travellers would travel round and either repair the cane work, which was probably expensive, or nail in place a pre-formed replacement plywood seat. I stripped and repaired this pair in preparation for Luis to re-cane for an upcoming street market in August.





Mostly these seem to have been manufactured throughout Northern and Eastern Europe. Most are decorated or perforated as can be seen in these two examples.




The chairs were given a new seat over the remaining cane and have not been restored since. The backrest on one of the chairs had partially snapped but this was easily repaired. The cane holes are cleared and ready for re-caning with new rattan cane in a seven-weave pattern.



They will be cleaned with linseed oil and white spirit, waxed and polished, re-caned and put on sale at the market along with a few rush chairs already completed.

Bookmark or subscribe to this site now and we'll update you on the finished chairs in a couple of weeks time, including photographs.
 If you'd like to take a look at some other restored chairs, click here:  http://artesanialapasera.com/

3 comments:

  1. Anonymous10:03 pm

    possible to purchase plywood replacement seats for broken cane chairs?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not sure they are still available. I have never seen them apart from on old restored chairs.

      Delete
  2. Thanks for the blog that you post, I can't think how old the chairs are, but one affair for sure it can use again when it's failing to repair and use paint.

    ReplyDelete

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