Chair caning kits and seat weaving kits

A chair caning kit puts the materials for one project in one box, so you do not have to work out sizes and amounts from separate rolls and coils. Kits suit first-timers and anyone fixing a single chair, stool or door.

Which kit you need depends on how the chair was built, so look at the seat frame first. A groove routed around the seat opening means pressed cane: choose the chair seat caning kit, with a cane sheet and the spline size that fits your groove. A row of small drilled holes means hand caning: choose the hand caning kit and weave the seat strand by strand in the traditional seven-step pattern. A frame of bare rails, with no groove and no holes, takes a woven seat: fiber rush on round-railed ladderback and farmhouse chairs, Danish cord on many mid-century chairs and stools, or seagrass. If you are not sure what you have, the guide to pressed cane vs hand caning explains how to tell.

There are also kits for refacing cabinet doors with cane, for general rattan furniture repair and for patching outdoor resin wicker.

Read the box list on each kit before you start. Some include small tools such as an awl, pegs or a chisel; others expect you to have a utility knife, a mallet or a staple gun on hand. The pressed cane seat guide and the hand caning guide walk through the two most common jobs.