Another fix out of the way

Very nice! I must admit that the first time I saw this done on the Repair Shop I was a tad disappointed that the wicker wasn?t woven in situ. ;-)

Makes a lot more sense to do it this way though.

Tim

Impressive, and very professional. When will we be seeing you on TRS?

Yes, I used to think that too.

Not as fancy a job as John's but I rewove some dining chairs with seagrass recently - this sort of thing:

Came out quite well, although I was not sure of the economics of doing so - the seagrass probably comes out north of £20 per chair, and you can pick up a set of chairs like this for not much. Still, that's not always the point, is it?

J^n

And tonight in the barn we have a slightly decrepit lump from Essex!

Are those the actual chairs, or just an illustration? (if the actual ones, then nice job!)

Indeed, especially when it's something with some history in the family and each little knock and scrape has a storey to tell.

IIRC I bought a 3m length of 60cm wide rattan, and 20m of reed, and it came to about £115, so say £135 with the glue and varnish. So again over £20/chair (although I will have some rattan left over)

Hi John They are just an illustration, but I would like to say mine came out to a pretty similar standard ;-). The reason I haven't put up a photo is that actually I have done this twice. I first did the complete set of four some years ago; however after ... 5--8 years? they started to sag a bit. So I have started to do them again. it is a 'work in progress', so far just one out of four done.

Some things I learned as I went along:

2) Very important to compress the widths of the seagrass against each other as you go. Otherwise you get unsightly gaps and sagging as it all stretches. I made a small L-shaped wooden piece to use along with a small hammer.

4) don't be afraid to put a lot of triangular cardboard pieces between the top and bottom layers before you start closing the centre hole.

This youtube video was the best resource for me:

Cheers J^n

PS: I saw a guy trading his skills in this area locally a little while back; he had set out several chairs of different designs in the 'town square', and was weaving away, advertising his services. IIRC he was charging something like £40 per chair for what I had done. No doubt he would be quicker than I was; I hope he had a cheaper source of rush or seagrass than I was able to find...

That was my rough assessment - one chair takes me 2 or 3 hours, he could undoubtedly it quicker but an hour? not sure.