trapazoidal seat caning

[Rob Stevens]

I am about to re-cane a set of seats for a circa 1900 Peterborough Canoe Co. vertical rib. The bow seat is straightforward as the hole pattern is rectangular, 9x26 (no corner hole)

The stern seat presents a conundrum. It is trapazoidal shaped, with 8 holes per side, but 14 along the front and 9 along the back (and offset corner holes unlike the bow seat), Both seats appear to be original but had not cane when I got the canoe.

I tried a couple of trial patterns for caning using string, but none worked out symmetrical or gave a pleasing pattern. Can anyone with experience caning these odd shapes please provide a pattern/sequence?

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Indian Girl seats are like this.... also, just about any dining room chair. I will attach a photo snarfed from somebody's previous IG post.

The seat in this picture is very straightforward... You can see that some of the holes correspond to a hole on the other parallel member, but some have to go into a hole on the side-member.

Once the general layout is complete--- the initial grid-work--- it should be easier to see how to play around with the cane so that the pattern comes out right. With some seats, you may find yourself going into the same hole for two of the "up and down" or "front to back" (actually, "front to side") lengths of cane... doesn't appear so on this seat, but I recall having to play around with caning on dining room chairs.

I'll look for more examples. Hope this helps.

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Displaying another image...

 

[Rob Stevens]

Thanks, Kathy, especially for pictures. I wouldn't have believed using all the holes would result in an even pattern given the different number of holes.

 

[paul s]

start at center of seat and work out from there.

 

[Dylan Schoelzel]

Rob,

In a seat like this the back and front both have to have either an odd number of holes or an even. The caning doesn’t work well when one is even and the other is odd.