As you work on chairs & rockers, you will eventually come across a piece that has caning on the back. This also leaves the backside of the back visible. It is important to make this caning as neat as possible - adding yet another degree of difficulty to the caning process. Here I will gather techniques to making the finished product beautiful.
There are several techniques to “knotless” backs.
1.
Select the longest & best of cane strands – this helps to reduce the need for
tying ends. Do not cut the strands,
try to use them in a future step.
Also, start & end canes on the bottom rail of the back, which also will make
knots less visible.
2.
Probably the BEST technique - the
“Sandwich” method. With this technique you leave all strands untied.
When another cane strand (#2) comes down the same hole as cane(#1),
heading up towards the next hole, sandwich the cane (#1) end between the rail &
the cane (#2) strand & continue up the hole. Prior to pulling tight, carefully
cut the cane(#1) so that it enters the next hole, but doesn’t come out the top
of the hole (or maybe comes out just a little bit).
You may end up with just a couple cane ends, which you can tuck under a
nearby loop & send up a hole. The
pressure of cane(#2) against the rails will hold cane(#1) secure.
3.
“Invisible Knot” – this is hard to describe in words.
With the invisible knot, think of your cane strands as being tied into 1
continuous strand. So when you come
to the end of a cane strand, you tie the next cane strand onto the end using an
overhand knot & pull it tight – inside the rail hole --.
Use your awl to form room for more cane to run.
After successfully learning this Invisible knot, each chair should only
have 1 knot at the last cane strand, which you can run under a loop & up a hole.
Mixed Techniques + Mixed Success: I have tried to use the Invisible
knot, with mixed success. It seems
to work best for me to use it on the first 3-4 steps & then finish the diagonals
with the Sandwich method. My next
experiment will be to do a chair with just the Sandwich technique.
Also, some Spanish design (or perhaps south American) pieces will have a groove
in the backside of the back. The
cane is run & tied off as needed & then a piece of wood or large binder cane
fills the groove – which is then finished to match the rest of the chair.
This hides all caning from the back, but it more difficult for the next
caner to remove & replace.