Splint Woven Seats
by Randy S Keeling
New ● Old ● Vintage ● Antique
Call me at ~ 503-684-5760
11740 SW Gallo, Tigard, Oregon (Near Portland) 97223
In the Incredible Fabulous Pacific Northwest, USA
Below is a list of our most common jobs. If your piece doesn’t fall under a listed catagory, or you’re not sure,
please don’t hesitate to call or email.
We can help!
Since 1975
☆ ☆ ♥ ☆ ☆
We Repair and Recane Furniture & Antiques with:
We Repair rustic furniture seats and backs of old hickory chairs with splint; flat strips of ash, oak, flat rattan, and shinny rattan peel bark materials…
We Repair & Do
- Cane or Caned Seats and Backs, Re-Cane Chairs With Caning. Hand Cane and Press or Machine Caning.
- Rush
- Rawhide
- Danish Cord Weaves – 3 ply twisted rope material.
- Splint, and other types of woven materials on furniture and chairs.
- Wicker Repairs
- Rattan Wrapping
- We also do minor Wood Repairs and re-gluing
In Tigard / Portland, Oregon, Near Washington Square.
New – Old – Vintage – Antique.
Splint, Peel, and Hickory Weaves
All of the seats and backs done on this page require weaving two sides. Splint material wraps around the tops of the dowel frame of the chair, over the sides, then across the bottom, and finally back up on top again. Tops and the bottoms of the seat then create two completely woven layers having a hollow area in between the two woven areas. This means twice the work for each seat or back.
Splint
How do you fix chairs with hickory splint type seats or backs?
How to repair chairs with hickory splint type seats or backs?
True Splint is obtained from native ash and hickory and from tropical palm trees. The native splint is cut from selected second-year growth timber with straight grain. Ash splints, machine cut to a uniform width, wear very well. Hickory splints often vary slightly in width, giving a pleasing effect. The tropical rattan palm tree from which materials like splint are made grows in the Indian Archipelago, China, India, Ceylon, and the Malay Peninsula. Without its leaves it is known commercially as rattan. The outer bark, stripped in different widths, is sold as cane; the core is split into round and flat strips of different thicknesses and widths, and is called reed.
Rattan Reed Splint is a flat, woody material cut from the inside of the rattan palm and is used for splint basketry and weaving country style chair seats. Traditionally splint was oak, ash, or hickory; today flat reed and flat oval reed are often substituted.
On this rustic old hickory chair above, we only did the seat.
Rattan splint creates a very strong, durable, and long lasting splint style woven seat.
Paper Splint
Old Rustic Hickory Chairs
Heavy 8-10mm Peel Binding Seats and Backs:
These are some of the same style old rustic hickory chairs as shown above with a Splint Seat but these are instead woven with a very heavy duty wide 8-10mm wide peel binding material. They are quite strong and very durable seats. This material is called “Peel”. The name comes from the peeled off bark of rattan.
Peel
How do you fix or repair chairs with peel seats or backs?
Below are pictures of weaves done with a much finer and more even 5mm peel binding. These are the most labor intensive seat that I do. (And the most expensive.)