How to recane a footstool

This is rush weaving.

I inherited this little rush cane footstool from my grandmother back in 1988. I'm a little embarrassed to admit that it looked like this back then and that I have put off getting it recaned for all those years. I mean, I had to find someone to do it, remember to put it in the car, and remember to drop it off. The excuses seem lame now, but it took 30 years for all the factors of footstool repair karma to align so that I could get this done.   

This is cane webbing.

A few years ago I found a furniture refinishing place here in Charlottesville that does recaning, so one day last December, Tony put the stool in the car and eventually remembered to take it there. Don't you know they don't do recaning anymore? It figures. They gave us a card for a man who does it, so Tony called him and asked him when he might be able to do our footstool. It turns out there are a lot of different kinds of caning and this guy does the cane webbing kind, not the rush weaving kind, But he said he was learning how to weave rush and would let us know when he had it down.

Well, I figured, if this guy is just learning how to do it, then I reckon I could learn how to do it too, so right then and there I decided I was going to recane that footstool myself. Between the two of us, Tony and I have a lot of skills that would help us to survive in a post apocalyptic world and I'm always happy to acquire a new one. I figure if I'm going down I might as well have my feet up on a freshly caned footstool.

You may have noticed by now that, when I tell you I'm going to teach you how to do something, what I really mean is that I'm going to point you in the direction of someone who actually knows stuff who will teach you. So I'm going to share all the resources I used and the lessons I learned and the mistakes I made so that you won't make the same ones. A wise man once told me, "You don't know what you don't know until you know it." Now that I know what I didn't know, I wanted to be sure you know it too because I bet at least one of you will try this once you learn how easy it is. Remember: One day this could turn out to be a useful skill with which you could barter for gasoline or vodka. 

This is what fiber rush looks like deconstructed.

SUPPLIES YOU WILL NEED

I ordered my supplies from basketmakerscatalog.com. The kind of stuff you use to weave a cane rush seat is called fiber rush, and it's really just craft paper that has been wound really tight into a long cord. It comes in a coil in at least three different sizes - 4/32", 5/32" and 6/32". I did some research and measured my cane and decided that the most typical size is 5/32", so that's what I ordered. They have a guide that tells you how much you will need for typical seat sizes. I ordered two coils ($12.50) and it was the right amount. I also ordered the tiny tacks ($1.95) you need to start and end the piece but frankly, I could have just re-used the ones I pulled out of the stool. If I knew then what I know now, I would have also ordered some wooden wedges ($1.99) for helping to push the cane into place and keep it tight. I already had some clamps but if you don't you should order these ($1.99). Even if you have to buy all of these supplies, it's a pretty thrifty project at $26.38 including shipping and handling. Oh, and I assume you already have a hammer, although I doubt if it's as cute as my hammer. If there is such a thing as a hammer snob, that's what I am. This hammer belonged to my grandfather, who was a finish carpenter. I'm in love with this hammer and using it just makes the whole hammering experience more authentic. You're probably thinking, "If the grandfather was a carpenter, why didn't he fix the stool?" My grandfather, the carpenter, was called Poppa, and he was my mother's father. The stool came from my father's mother, who was called Granny. Granny could hardly boil an egg, let alone re-cane a footstool. So that clears that up.

HOW TO VIDEOS

I don't think there is anything left on earth that you can't learn on YouTube and it didn't take me long to find videos that make cane weaving look pretty easy. These are my favorite instruction videos from YouTube:

The guy who walks you through the process in the video on the left is Ed Hammond and I really appreciated how he kept saying, "over the rail and up the middle," because that became my weaving mantra. It is suprisingly confusing trying to remember which direction to go when you are weaving and I'm quite certain that Ed's voice in my head saying, "over the rail and up the middle," helped me to avoid a lot of errors. 

Cathryn Peters, wickerwoman.com

Another useful site is wickerwoman.com, which is where Cathryn Peters has been blogging about basket and wicker weaving for 17 years. Her weaving career started with a DIY paper rush seat project in 1975 and the rest is history. I couldn't help but wonder if my little footstool repair project could prove to be a similar life-changing event, but I'm not sure there's a lot of money in paper rush seat weaving. Plus, all that pulling and manipulating the cane did a number on my left thumb and it's really sore. I'm calling it caner's thumb and I think it's going to be a good conversation starter at a future party.

LESSONS LEARNED

The next time I do a caning project I might soak the fiber rush a little longer. Ed said for paper rush you only give it a quick dip, so that the paper doesn't disintegrate, so I was a little paranoid that I would soak it too long. Ed also talks about the importance of "working the corners," and he was right. I didn't really get the hang of the corners until I was about 8 strands into it. If your project is something really fancy, you should probably plan to practice it for a bit, then take it apart and start over. I also think those wedges that Ed talks about in his video would have been helpful to push the fibers close together. Probably the biggest flaw in my footstool project is that the fibers aren't perfectly tight and even, but that would come with practice. Frankly, I think it looks pretty good and it's not bad for an afternoon's work. I'm as proud of this as anything I have ever made, other than my children. 

Here's a video of me caning this footstool, and it's proof that I really did it all myself. Now that you see how easy it is, are any of you thinking of doing it, or was this whole post a complete waste of time?