Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Saga of the Safari Chairs, Reprise

You may remember this post from May 20, 2008:

These are our chairs. They come from Pakistan, manufactured in Pershawa around 1970 by a man named M. Hayat. They are made of leather, rosewood and have brass fittings. The chairs totally disassemble and can be transported in canvas bags.

I just received a note from a lady who is repairing one of these and she was asking about the seat lacing.

The seats are one rectangle of black buffalo hide perforated with eyelets at the ends.

The ends are placed over the rounded front and back pieces and curled around to the bottom, then laced with heavy cotton cord. If you didn't get the cord, check with fabric supply stores in the drapery department. Cotton is the only cord that will work for these chairs, anything else is either too stretchy or too stiff. Take the seat with you to check if it will thread right--the cotton should be well twisted.

The first part of the cording is threaded through the first front eyelet and knotted to secure the end. The cords run from front to back through the alternating eyelets just as if you were threading one shoelace into a shoe. They don't cross over; it's just a straight run in a zig-zag.

There should be a little slack on the lacing so that there will not be too much strain on the eyelet holes.

Depending on how long the rope is, when you have laced all the eyelet holes, the end looped over and under across the back lacings and tied off. It's always better to have a little slack or extra rope at the end, just in case you need it.

I once got a chair that had the seat put on the wrong way--the leather looped over the square side supports. The eyelets couldn't take it and some of them ripped.

Good luck with the repair and keep me posted!

Cheers, Jeanette

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