Tuesday Tip of the Day–This Tuesday’s Tip is about weaving a paper rush seat, beginning the first step of weaving, filling in the gussets or side rails.
The old way of attaching the short strands needed to “square up” a trapezoidal (wider in the front than in the back) chair seat, was to nail the ends to the inside left and right side rails using upholstery tacks.
This solution worked fine for many years and in most cases, but sometimes all those tacks and nails would damage the side rails, especially if the rails were round dowels and on the narrow or small size to begin with.
But then several years ago, I ran across another way to attach those rush strands to the side rails that works really, really slick! Attach the pre-measured paper strands to the side rails using a cable tie! Fold the strands over in half and then attach the cable tie in the middle to the left side rail.
Weave each strand over one at a time until you finish filling in the gussets or “squaring up” the chair seat. When you get to the end of a strand, clip it to the right side rail using a spring clamp!
And then once it’s all “squared up” you can begin weaving around all four corners until you finish weaving the chair seat.
Have you tried using this terrific time and chair-saver Tuesday Tip of the Day, yet? Once you do, you’ll love it!
Leave a comment below and let us know what tips you use for “squaring up” those paper rush gussets. Happy Weaving! Enjoy!
This is great. one question- what did you do with the strands on the right rail? I didn’t see a cable tie on that side.
Shelly,
If you will look at the two pictures showing the rush chair seat in progress and look on the right side, you will see that those paper fibre ends in the gussets are held on with a spring clamp. That way, it’s easy to add the remaining ends when you fill in the gussets to “square up” the rush chair seat. Sorry you missed that.
Really we can’t even imagine that how many uses of cable ties are there is our life and in which ways we can use it.
Thank you Susan for posting your Leco Plastics website link here, great to know where we can get such cool supplies as the cable or zip ties in mass quantities!