If you have a chair that has a paper cord seat there are several reasons that you might need to have it re-woven, broken paper cord being the biggest culprit, others could be stains that wont come out or even cats, they love to dig their claws into these seats sometimes. Lucky for you, I’m going to show you how to re-seat one of these chairs yourself. After watching the video, you still don’t think you are up to the task, there are people out there like me that will do this for you. One of these chairs, depending on your location, would cost around $300 to get a new Danish paper cord seat.

Please keep in mind that this is how I learned to do it and that it is not the only way to weave Danish cord.

Materials:

Chair
Danish nails
Squeeze clamp
Tack hammer
Tacks (optional)
Unlaced Danish cord (if you want it to be authentic for Moller chairs) -can use laced Danish cord or even fiber rush

I have a set of teak J.L. Moller chairs that I acquired at an auction. They were in pretty good condition except for the woven seats had a few strands that were broken. While it is possible to repair a few strands, its difficult to match the patina of aged Danish cord.

i know there are 5, one has a damaged back rest that is currently beyond repair

With that said, I removed all the Danish cord from these chairs, first by cutting the old cord Once the cords were all cut, underneath, you need to loosen the nails by slightly bending the nails back to get the cord lose. Then you remove the old cord. What you are left with is the chair with all the nails left in place. If a nail breaks or falls out, you can replace them.

For one chair, it takes about a 2-pound spool of unlaced Danish cord. You can get a 2-pound spool for about $30 from an online weaving supply store. Because I had several chairs to do, I used a 10-pound spool I got for $100 and made a spool holder with a lazy Susan to make the un-spooling easier.

With the chair facing me and the spool on my left, I start on the front left of the chair, you have to secure the end of the cord to the chair, you can do this one of two ways. 1, you can use upholstery tacks to secure the cord to the front chair rail or 2, which I did, you can weave the cord over and under the nails on the left side rail with the tail going to the rear of the chair, you only need to weave it about 4 or 5 nails back. This will secure the cord.

From here you start taking the cord on the inside of the first (left most) front nail and then by going under the front rail and back to the rear rail. This first set of strands will be a set of 4 (2 sets of 2)

In the rear of the chair, you will go over the rear rail from the front and up under to the left most nail from right to left then back over the rear rail (the way you came) to the front, hook on the nail from left to right and then back over the top to the back. Using the same nail in the back, right to left, hook the nail and go back to the front. When you get back to the front, hook on the nail and the next nail from left to right You will want to make sure the 4 strands are pushed all the way to the left You will be spanning two nails, your front to back strands will always be positioned over the nail.

You will continue to do this the entire way across the chair, each nail will get 1 set of strands except for the first and last sets, once you get to the last nail on the right of the chair, you will do 2 sets of strands totaling 4 strands. It will be the same as the start. Once you bring the last strand back to the front and hook the nail from left to right, you can either tack the strand in place or weave over under on the side rail nails to secure it in place and cut the cord. You can turn the chair over and hammer down the nails with a tack hammer on the front and back rails(all except the middle nail)

Now that you have all the front back strands completed, you will wrap the front and back stretchers. Starting on the front stretcher, you want to measure out 50 ft of cord and cut it from the spool. Find the center and hook it on the center nail. For the back rail it will be 40 ft. Separate the 2 halves so they do not get tangled.

If you took notice to the chair before you disassembled it, you will have noticed that the front rail normally has 5 wraps between the long strands. sometimes there are 6 or sometimes 4 but on the moller chairs its normally 5.

I wrap to the left first. On the 5th wrap, on the back of the chair rail, you have to cross over the strands that are already nailed. Continue wrapping the front rail until you get to the end, you want to get as many wraps as possible, making sure the front to back strands remain over the nails. When you get to the end you need to tack the cord in place(or you can over under weave it on the nails on the side rails.

Once you have the front and back wrapped you will start weaving left to right . tack or over under weave the cord to the side rail and pull enough cord to reach the other side and start weaving, pull it taught, but not tight, hook the nail underneath and then pull the cord back on the other side, that is the first weave.

Use your fingers to pull the strands towards the front rail to keep things tight. Wrap the cord on the next hook on the left side, and start weaving to the other side.

Note, you will start opposite where you stated the time before. Continue to do this until you have done the hole chair. Depending how many nails there are, you will often have to double up on the nails so that you don’t run out by the time you get to the end. You will want to make sure everything is taught but not to tight.

When you get to the end, it will get more difficult. Make sure you do not get the strands tangled or twisted. you need keep pulling the weave pattern to the from to keep it tight, the last strand or two will be tight and you may need to use a wood wedge to make some more space.

When you get your last pair in place, hook the tail of the paper cord on the last nail and either do the over under weave on a few nails or use a tack hammer and upholstery tacks to tack the cord in place. If you do this, you should use 2 or 3 tacks. Once you have it secured in place, you will need to cut off the cord. now that you are finished weaving, you will need to adjust the pattern of the seat. While you were weaving, you were pulling everything towards your body to make room, now we have to space out the patter to fill up the extra space we made.

Now you are done! you will want to inspect the chair to see if there are any mistakes that you can fix.

here is what the final chair looks like. let me know what you think. you can follow me on Instagram and feel free to subscribe on my YouTube channel for more videos

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Here is my first attempt at creating a tutorial in the form of a blog post. I will outline all the steps I used to create this floating shelf and if you want to watch how I did it, the video is embedded below. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to leave a comment on here or on the YouTube video, I would love to hear what you think.

I recently moved into a new studio and have been constantly changing around the space. I think I have got it to a place where I like it. I have an office area set up and an MCM couch with a cookie coffee table I made to help me relax and give me a space to think and design.

In order to get more organized, I realized I need a shelf. So, I took a look around and found some wood, about 7 feet long, 9 inches wide that I got from the side of the road a few months ago. It was a broken pine bed frame; I got some good pieces of wood from it and this was the last one. I also had some scrap metal, 1 in flat stock about 6 feet long and some 3/8 round stock.

Anytime I need to make something for myself, I use that opportunity to try some new techniques. I decided on a floating shelf. The metal would be mounted to the wall and I would drill holes in the shelf that would be able slide on to the bracket.

Materials Used

Pine Board (Milled to 6 ft by 8 in x 1 ¼ in high)

1 inch by ¼ flat stock steel, 6 feet long

3/8 by 3 feet round stock steel

Tools Used: (you can click on some of these tools if you are interested in buying on amazon)

Tape Measure

Stud Finder
Marker
Jointer
Planer
Table Saw
Compound Miter Saw
Battery Drill
1/8in drill bit
3/8 in drill bit
3/8 in 12 in long drill bit
½ in drill bit
Metal drilling step bit
Wall anchors for metal studs(x4)
MiG Welder
Angle Grinder with 40 grit sand disc
Antique Walnut Gel Stain by General Finishes
Minwax Spray Lacquer
Bosch Plunge Router
Milescraft router edge and mortise guide
¼ spiral router bit
¾ router bit
12 inch F style clamps
Level

Step 1: Find and mark studs

After deciding where to put the shelf, I had to mark where the studs are. I’m using a stud finder to find the metal stud.

Step 2: Mark your level line where you want the shelf

Now that I’ve found the studs, I draw a level line where the shelf will go so that I can later drill the holes for the anchors

Step 3: drill pilot hole

Using a 1/8 in drill bit, drill the pilot holes. Im doing this to ensure that I am on the metal stud and it will help when I drill with a larger drill bit.

Step 4: Drill holes for anchors

Using a ½ inch drill bit, drill the holes for the anchors. I used Toggler heavy duty ¼ toggle bolts that use a ½ hole.

Step 5: Install anchors

Insert the toggle bolts into the hole you drilled and then slide the one end to the wall to tighten against the drywall. Snap off the remainder of the plastic.

Step 6: Gather Materials

This is when I got all the materials together. I guess if you were to do this project, you would want to get all the materials together before you start. I had all the materials and had a plan for what I was going to do but this is the order I did it in the video.

Step 7: Joint one edge

Because I was using reclaimed wood, I needed to mill it to the correct size. If you are using wood purchased at a home store you can mill it in order to get it to the size you need.

Step 8: Cut to width

The shelf will be 8 inches deep so I need to cut off about 1 inch.

Step 9: Face Joint one face

This step is used in the process of squaring up the wood using the straight edge we already created. Do as many passes as it takes to get the face flat.

Step 10: Plane to thickness

The board was about 1 ½ inches thick, I needed to plane it to get it to 1 ¼ so that it was square and that I had 1/8 on the top and bottom to hide the bracket once installed

Step 11: Cut to length:

Using a Miter saw, I squared up both ends and cut the board to exactly 6 feet.

Step 12: Route a 1 inch groove in back of shelf where the metal bracket will be hidden

In order for the shelf to look like its floating, ideally you don’t want to see how the shelf is mounted to the wall. With this in mind, I decided to route a groove in the shelf so that the bracket would be hidden from the top and bottom. Based on the size of the square stock I had, I had to do this using several techniques. First I removed the center material using a mortising guide attachment for my router, this removed the center ¾ inch, then to fit the rest, I had to remove 1/8 from each side, so I used the same ¾ in bi and an edge guide. Take a look a the picture for an up close of the 1/8 lip that was left to hide the bracket.

Step 13: Cut metal to length

I used a metal cutting band saw to cut the metal but you can use a hack saw or reciprocating saw if you don’t have one.

Step 14: Measure and mark for anchor holes

Measure out where the holes for the anchors will be drilled. My studs were 16 inches on center, with the steel in the groove, I measured 16 inches from the end of the shelf and marked it, then 16 more until i marked all the holes.

Step 15: Drill anchor holes

You will need to drill holes int he metal bracket so you can mount it to the wall. I used a metal drilling stepped drill bit. It makes it easier to drill through metal.

Step 16: Mark back of shelf to countersink where anchor heads

After your holes are drilled, place the steel back in the groove and make where the holes are. this way, you can mark where the bolts for the anchors will be so you can countersink them later.

Step 17: Mark where round supports will be welded

While the steel is still in the groove, space out where you want to put the steel rods. I spaced them out evenly making sure they didn’t overlap where the holes for the anchors were.

Step 18: Transfer marks to shelf

Using a square, transfer your marks to from the steel to the shelf so you can line them up later and know where you will need to drill the holes in the next step

Step 19: drill holes for metal rods

Next you will need to drill holes that the metal rods will slide into. the hole needs to be about 7 inches deep. Don’t go more than this so that you don’t drill through what will be the face of the shelf. I do not have a drill press so I did this first with the plunge router and a spiral bit to keep the hole plumb. After I plunged about 2 inches deep, I switched to a battery drill with a 3/8 drill bit. I used the one I had which was too short so I had to go back later and do it with a longer one. If you have the longer drill skip using the shorter bit.

**make sure you get all the saw dust out of the hole so that you dont run into problems later.**

Step 20: Drill countersink holes for anchors

Using a 1/2 inch drill bit, countersink about 1/4 inch on the marks we marked in step 16.

Step 21: Measure and cut round stock

Measure out and mark every 7 inches to get 5 pieces of round stock.

Step 22: Weld round stock to shelf bracket

Using a Mig welder, weld the 5 rods onto marks you made on the flat stock you are using as the mounting bracket.

**If you do not have a welder or do not know how to weld, you can use different methods to get the same effect. For example; you can use 7 inch bolts or 3/8 threaded rod and drill holes and use nuts to secure them to the mounting bracket. If you do this, you will have to drill more countersinks in both the wall and the shelf so that the shelf slides on to the bracket.**

Step 23: clean up welds

Using an angle grinder and a 40 grit sanding disc, I cleaned up the welds.

Step 24: Apply Stain to shelf

I decided to stain the shelf an antique walnut. I used a gel stain by general finishes. Wipe on the stain and then after a few minutes, wipe off the excess.

Step 25: Add clear coat

After about 15 minutes you can apply a clear coat. I did three coats of Minwax spray lacquer.

Step 26: Mount the shelf bracket

Using the bolts for the anchors, bolt on the bracket to the wall. I used a battery drill with a phillips bit.

Step 27: Slide shelf onto bracket

Once the bracket is installed you are ready for the shelf to get installed. Line up the rods with the pre-drilled holes and slide the shelf back to the wall. If this doesn’t go on easy, you can use the heel of your hand or rubber mallet and a piece of wood to hit it on. If you have a real difficult time, there might be an issue like saw dust in the hole, double check everything.

Step 28: Put all your stuff on it

I used this shelf to put some woodworking books and some other things I made like my MADE BY M.E. sign and some bowls. Enjoy your shelf.