finish for cane seat?

[Philip Maynard]

What is the recomended finish for cane seats? (I have come by a 85% finished whisp which included the Shaw and Tenny cane seats).

[ishmael]

Traditionally, on furniture, nothing. I'm not sure about canoe seats. I left my Whisp seats unfinished, and have had problems.

The Shaw and Tenney seats are not terribly rugged. The reason is that rather than handwoven they are splined. They take sheets of pre-woven cane and fit them into a dadoe with a spline to hold it in place. This makes a hard spot at the spline which fairly quickly begins to break down on the rower's thwart.

Good luck. Unless the one-man portage is a necessary feature I'd be tempted to fit Whisp with solid thwarts. Alternatively, it might be worthwhile to make up a different center thwart and have it hand caned.

[Kim Whitmyre]

An occassional coat of shellac? Or lacquer, maybe. I re-caned (with pre-woven cane) two barstools a while ago, and had to match the cane to the color of the wood. I mention this because in my research I discovered that the cane will not take stain. So I used a lacquer toner to match the color. So a film finish may be the way to go should you want to protect it.

Kim

[kc8pql]

I always lacquer or varnish per-woven cane. Big swings in humidity can cause the cane to loosen and look baggy. Sealing it stablizes it.

[Steve Lansdowne]

If you use plastic cane, you don't finish 'em at all.

[Todd Bradshaw]

I usually varnish it, at least on the top side. Helps keep it clean looking down the road, though it will darken like any varnished wood. I'm generally getting better than 30 years out of the cane as long as I don't do something stupid and punch a hole in it (like clamp the Seagull outboard to the car top rack to keep it from dripping oil and gas inside the car and then lower the seat of my canoe directly onto the prop by accident...oops).

Jack has a good point though. Canoe seats don't generally have to survive their users rocking back and forth on them nearly as much or as hard as a rowing seat would. Makes me wonder how long the cane will put up with it. It's certainly nice and light, but sometimes there is something to be said for a nicely varnished plank seat.

[ 11-14-2005, 12:16 AM: Message edited by: Todd Bradshaw ]

[Carlsboats]

Varnish and -- most important --keep it out of the sun. Cane should last a long time at sea as long as you don't have the sun beating down on it.

[LazyJack]

Adirondack Guideboats traditionally used hand-caned seats as they needed to stay light to be portaged.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid194/p14faf202909af7678d113fb49b1ffb1a/f174ecf8.jpg
I too have experienced the splined canoe seats that turn into toilet seats so I handwove the ones for my guideboat using dampened cane so I hope it will stay taught.
http://www.imagestation.com/picture/sraid194/p6eb54b1fb28a43a8d3ded333b1b1b303/f174e505.jpg I've left mine unfinished so far but I'm very interested in hearing about shellac or varnish as a means of protecting the cane from moisture. Hand weaving turns out to be really very straight foward and is not difficult to do at all. For a little extra time you'll have a seat that won't loosen up and sag on you.

Go for it...I dare ya! ;)

[Fitz]

I use one coat of thinned spar varnish on the top side of the cane. Leave the underside to "breathe". This was also recommended by a professional hand caner I know as to how to protect canoe seats.

[LazyJack]

I think I'll try that. Thanks Fitz (and Philip Maynard for posting the question)

[ 11-14-2005, 10:19 PM: Message edited by: LazyJack ]

[Jay Greer]

While I use shellack for sealing inside hollow spars, it won't hold up when exposed to direct water contact.
Varnish is traditional for sealing cane seats. I believe that epoxy would also serve well here.
JG

[emichaels]

If your doing cane seats for outside use, why not use the plastic cane. We used this for the seats in out canoe and after 6 years of an awful lot of use it is still as taught as when we strng the seats. None has broken and several people have commented on the comfort of the seats. Just one caners opinion. smile.gif

Eric

[emichaels]

Originally posted by Carlsboats:
Varnish and -- most important --keep it out of the sun. Cane should last a long time at sea as long as you don't have the sun beating down on it.Just a note on the plastic cane. Our canoe sits out all season, albeit upside down when not in use, but it does not seem to be adversly affected by the sunlight.

Eric

[seo]

Some sources say that shellac is the best coating. I hadn't used it much since 6th grade shop class, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth. It's good stuff. Easy to thin, modify, apply, amalgamate. Just don't spill alcohol on it.
The problem with unsealed cane is that it gets dirty faster.
seo

[Todd Bradshaw]

You can also use shellac as a base coat under varnish. When I punched out the cane on my canoe seat I decided to sand down and revarnish the seat frame as well as just replace the cane. To get the refurbished seat to match the patina of it's 30 year-old mate, I gave it a coat of orange shellac (both frame and cane) before varnishing it. It did a surprisingly good job of giving it that aged varnish look.

Plastic cane isn't going to stretch if it gets wet, but don't think for a moment that it is immune to U.V. deterioration. After all, it IS plastic and U.V. problems (as well as other forms of slowly drying-out, getting brittle, losing it's plasticizer, etc.) happen to most plastics in time.

[bainbridgeisland]

I can tell you something that didn't work out very well. Put cane fronts in galley locker doors 20-years ago and sealed them with epoxy. As far as I know, they are still sound. Trouble is they were never tight after the epoxy was applied. Baggy cane just doesn't look as good.

[Alan D. Hyde]

A good source of caning knowledge and materials may be found at---

http://www.hhperkins.com/

Here's a quote from their FAQs page---

"Do you recommend sealing the finished chair seat with anything?

Yes we do, both indoor seats as well as outdoor. For any cane products, we suggest an oil based stain (Perkins blending stain or Zar stain) as well as a clear finish (tung oil, inseed oil or polyurethane). For a fiber rush paper seat, we highly suggest shellac. This is also recommended for natural rush (pretwisted or cattail). Splint woven chair seats again should be oil base stained (optional) and then sealed with a polyurethane or tung oil solution."

And, here's a direct link to that page---

http://www.hhperkins.com/customer_service/faqs/seat_faqs/

***

Alan

[neptoon]

shellac is great for adding patina...but to hard and not water resistant unless encapsulated with other coatings....tried and true varnish will stay softer longer...do you really want to put a hard coating on something so soft..?