Fix your Wicker Furniture

[gahrajmahal]

Another "How To" from the old Gahraj. It would be a good companion piece to a thread many years ago Cane Rocker Repair . We do have many wicker furniture pieces at our home. This post is regarding our dining room chairs. We purchased these from a long ago Cincinnati manufacturer of wicker and cane furniture. They were prototypes and did not have any finish or seat bottoms. I made those myself from 3/4" plywood then sprayed the chairs with clear lacquer from a proper automotive spray gun. They have held up great over the years with exception of a few broken strands.



The missus was excited that I may actually "get off my ****" and fix our chairs after finally ordering replacement Reed from H.H. Perkins an online resource for wicker and cane supplies. Initially I went to the local Rockler and Woodworkers Supply, but neither of those places stock those supplies anymore. I purchased a bundle of #5 Round Reed and pro-crastinated for a while. Notice the emphasis on "Pro".

She "helped" by visually going over all the chairs and marking with blue painters tape where the missing wicker strips were. This was actually very helpful, and I recommend that you engage someone to handle that task too!

The repair process is actually quite simple and requires few tools and some carpenter glue. I used Titebond II Premium. I also used a "glue hypodermic" I purchased many years ago at Rockler to accurately squirt the glue under the cross reeds. Have a look...



You need some kind of a small hooked tool. I used an o-ring remover, but a crochet hook, dental pick or bent paper clip may work good too. Pull up on the short fragment and attempt to snap it off under the double cross reeds.



Our chairs are almost 30 years old so the wicker is brittle and snapped off easy on it's own. On the few that were bendy and stubborn, I just used the tip of a utility knife to score the reed just at the double cross reed.



The new Reed, and the tools minus the utility knife (box cutter)

 

[gahrajmahal]

The reed I chose was round even though most of the reed on our chairs was split reed, or a semi-circle. You can buy it that way, but you will see it is very easy to split and it gives you some options.



Hold the reed up to the new cleared slot to approximate your replacement piece length. Simply cut a bit too long, maybe 1/2".







You will weave your new piece over-under using your hook tool and hands. If your new wicker is too stiff, take it to the sink and run it under some water for a few seconds. If that doesn't soften it up, you may need to boil some water and soak it in that for a bit longer.





I found that tapering the "glue end" of my wicker made for a smoother appearance and a larger gluing surface.

 

[gahrajmahal]

I used a combination of squirt the glue in, after weaving it and dipping the end in glue prior to tucking it under the cross reeds. I also was interested in gluing the loose end of the old brittle original reed. I noticed in areas where the side-by-side clearance was wide, the original reed can slip out of place, ruining the appearance. If it has some glue there it should be sturdier.

Once glued, take a moistened paper towel and wipe off the obvious globs. Once dry the glue will shrink and turn darker camouflaging the repair.

 

[gahrajmahal]

You can see that the repaired sections are whiter than the aged, lacquered wicker. I retrieved my gallon of clear lacquer and dipped a test reed in to see if it would darken it up sufficiently. It did not. It was still too light to bend in seamlessly, so I had to look for some wood stain to see if I could better match the old finish. Thankfully I had some Maple Stain that darkened the new repair areas. Using a small artist brush and a rag to clean it up, it matched much better. It matched so well that it was hard to find the repaired spots since I had REMOVED the kindly placed blue tape from Mrs. Gahrajmahal. So, leave your tape there until you are finished!

I then followed with the artists brush and the clear lacquer.



Let me know if I missed anything. The whole repair process took about an hour. I let the glue dry overnight before the stain and clear.

 

[nadogail]

Thank you for posting the source of your supplies and the detailed write up of the procedure you used.

IMHO, getting Mrs. Gahrajmahal involved was genius.

 

[gahrajmahal]

Thank you for posting the source of your supplies and the detailed write up of the procedure you used.

IMHO, getting Mrs. Gahrajmahal involved was genius.

Even having a Mrs. Gahrajmahal shows how big a genius I am!