OLD CHAIRS GIVEN NEW LIFE

Water is sprayed on a chair that has recently been caned using the flat reed style. Water is used in caning to make the material pliable. The pattern shown is called herring bone.

Old brittle caning is cut off a chair that will be caned using the fiber rush style. The chair is Fran Mayberry's next project.

Some people prefer flopping down on a cushiony sofa, others prefer sitting on a wooden chair that gives firm support.

If you're in the latter group, you might want to sample one of Fran Mayberry's creations -- she removes old worn-out seats from chairs and canes -- or weaves -- new seats that are strong and attractive.

Mayberry, who was born in Poplar Bluff and raised in Dexter, canes chairs on her kitchen table in her home in Zalma.

Caning is done with long pieces of thin wood known as splints. Chairs on which splints can be used must have seat rails so splints can be wound around them.

Splint is suitable for chairs simple in design -- with few turnings -- such as the early American ladder-back chairs frequently found at garage sales.

Mayberry doesn't seek chairs to cane -- people bring them to her. And she doesn't run a big business empire -- she carefully canes six to eight chairs a year.

"I've done maybe 30 chairs since I got interested in it about 10 years ago in Texas," said Mayberry, who moved to Zalma, population about 90, in 1988. "I got a hold of some old chairs that needed seats and couldn't find anyone to do them.

"So I went to a library, checked out a book and taught myself how to do it. I caned four chairs that time."

A few years later in a bookstore in Michigan, Mayberry happened upon the same how-to caning book. She bought the book, and it proved helpful when she lived in Dexter.

She owned a grocery store there and two large old rocking chairs were inside.

"People would say, 'Where'd you get those chair seats done?' and I'd tell them I did it. So I ended up doing about six chairs for people there."

Mayberry says caning chairs is something of a lost art. Many people would replace broken splints with boards, because they didn't know how to replace caned seats.

Other materials were also used: "I redid one for a lady in Bloomfield and the whole seat had been done with men's neckties -- 17 of them. I had to cut them off. You could sit in the chair but it was a little baggy in the middle."

Another time, Mayberry removed strips of vinyl that had been used to fashion a seat. Says Mayberry: "It's very hard to find someone who does caning. And people want original-type seats put back in their chairs."

Mayberry does four types of chair caning -- flat reed, hand laced, rush work and pre-woven.

She says flat reed is "probably the oldest style," and many years ago it was practiced in the Zalma area by the Pittman brothers. They used oak splints to fashion seats on ladder-back chairs.

The splints were stripped off logs after the bark had been removed, and they measured about one-half inch to 1 inch in width.

The flat reed style makes possible the herring bone and diamond patterns. Mayberry recently completed a rocker seat in the herring bone pattern. The diamond pattern, she says, is very pretty and difficult to do.

The hand laced style is complicated and requires narrow pieces of caning -- from one-eighth to one-sixteenth inch in width. Eight steps are involved, and a finished seat will be neatly divided into sections. It takes Mayberry between eight and 12 hours to finish a seat. A seat might have up to 500 yards of caning.

The rush work style of caning is also called fiber rush, says Mayberry. Fiber rush is a tough plant fiber twisted tight, and when untwisted looks like heavy paper. It is an imitation of natural rush -- which is twisted cattail leaves.

Whereas most caning material has to be soaked in water prior to use, to ensure pliability, fiber rush does not; however, it takes "a lot of hard pulling to get it weaved ... I have to have my husband help on those," she said, smiling.

The fourth style of caning Mayberry does is called pre-woven. It is a mat of material caned on a machine. It comes ready to cut and requires glue to attach to the wooden chair frames. In other styles of caning, the material is hand tied beneath the seat.

Mayberry says caned chairs should generally not be left out in the weather, but whether inside or outside of the house, the seats should be regularly coated with linseed oil so they don't get dry and brittle.