Restoring Rockers. Caning: Adult Ornate Rocker.

This is the last project of the Restoring Rockers 2004-2005 series to be completed. This rocker was purchased at a southeastern Minnesota city wide antique & flea market, the summer of 2004.  My wife was able to "bargain" the seller down to $20 for the rocker. The finish was bad; the cane seat was broken; but the joints were all tight & it had no broken/loose parts. So we thought this was a very good deal.   This is the story about the restoration of this adult, ornate, rocker.

As you can see below, the rocker has both caned seat & partial back caned.  The spindles on the back add interest, as well as the large curved arms. The finish was virtually gone from the arms & looked like someone had started to remove the finish from the rockers. 
     

The rocker stripped quite easily. The arms had to be removed to get at the cane, because they partially cover the holes. The arms are held on with screws, so removal was not difficult.

This rocker was refinished.   I planned to cane the seat with the 7-step method. The back I wanted to do a decorative pattern. I had yet to decide which pattern to use,.... but my wife was getting her own ideas as she watched while I worked.

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Well......, things changes from planning to production.  My wife decided that she wanted SpiderWebA pattern on both the Back & Seat. This was quite a challenge.  Using the SpiderWebA pattern, caning took me from January 18, 2005 to March 17, 2005.  It is BEAUTIFUL! 

This view of the completed seat show's the depth of the pattern. With the SpiderWebA pattern there is a 3 dimensional effect, that one can easily feel.  At first when caning, the 3-D effect would work against my new bifocal glasses & I had to take breaks to stop the room from spinning.

These three pictures of the completed seat show some of the trouble areas, the curved front, the curved front corner & the back right corner.  The difficulty is the pattern tends to blend out on the rails, only be partially visible & so is hard to know where to run the cane.
       

The back is curved to more comfortably rest in. However, it is also curved vertically for beauty. This added to the level of difficulty.  The problem was with the bottom corners & again, losing the SpiderWeb pattern.  I tried very hard to minimize knots on the back, using a technique to loop once over the cane & then run the cane end up a nearby hole. Any excess was trimmed with a utility knife from the front, being EXTREMELY careful not to cut any other cane or damage the rocker.  There are a few knots that I just could not avoid, found mostly in the corners. I think there are between 4-6 visible to my eye, but probably un-noticed to the untrained eye.
       

Celebrate another Success!!!!  Here is the completed Adult Ornate Rocker.  The SpiderWebA pattern does add beautify to this grand old rocker.  This one is for my Dear Wife of many, many years. Thanks for putting up with my peculiarities & taking care of me.
   

Copyright 2005, All work on this page was completed by Wayne Sharp & may not be used for profit without his written permission.