Friday, August 9, 2013

Revamped rocking chair with re-used insect screen ribbons.

IMG_4164.JPGA few years a go we bought a nice old rocking chair at a flea-market. After scrubbing off a very old, thick and ugly layer of brown paint, sanding and adding felt to the legs it served it's duty in the living room. When we got some other chairs for the room the rocking chair moved outside to the veranda. The Dutch wet climate and winters freeze did a quick job of cracking the wood and crumbled the woven seat. Our new dog we got this year did a last good job on that seat.

So time to revamp this rocking chair, because summer is coming!
After removing the remains of the seat, treatment with a steel brush, some sanding and a little bit of glue in the joints I gave it a three layer coating of oil.
Then the difficult part came; the weaving of a new seat. I had a disposed and incomplete insect-screen with a nice colorful look kept for this purpose. I thought it wouldn't be hard to try the same technique as was used with the rush on the old seat. I was wrong, because of the trapezium form of the frame and the width of the ribbons that didn't work. I tried it according some instructions found in some old books I have (I've got quite a big collection of how-to books and other instructional stuff) and instructions found on the internet.
Then I was inspired by this Instructable (thank you Katvanlew!) and decided to just weave it in some sort of herringbone pattern (as in this video on youtube, however I made my own variation). I'm quite pleased with the results so, let those pleasant warm and long summer-evenings come for some rocking rest!


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