The Mark of Cane

Today I went to something I called Big Boy Camp. It was a chair caning class at a woodworking store . There were ten of us, counting the instructor. Four women were in the group which made it more interesting. There were several characters in the class, including the old codger who already knew it all, the man who was stressing over every move, and the woman who would say to someone else in the class , "Shouldn't you make that tighter?"--criticizing her as she was working on her chair.

We signed in at the cash register and then proceeded to the basement of the store where there were four waist high work tables and all the tools we would need. I was the only one who had a pressed cane chair, the kind where there is a spline that holds the cane in place. Everyone else had the kind with circles around the perimeter, where you had to weave the cane yourself through the holes. What they were doing looked a bit more interesting than my project. Amazingly, you stick one end of the cane into a hole, plug it with a wooden peg, and then thread it across to the opposite hole, and keep moving pegs around the perimeter as you go.

My chair required soaking the spline in hot vinegar to loosen the glue. Most appetizing. All I needed was oil and maybe some lettuce. I managed to chip the chair in a bad place as I worked on it. I think it can be fixed with some glue, though.

These are all chairs from Kathy's mom's house. There are four of them with the cane broken out. Maybe when I get to the fourth one, I'll finally figure out what I'm doing.