An Overview of Weave on Antique Hickory Furniture
A significant dimension of the appeal of certain antique hickory seating, beds and accessories is their woven surfaces. This article provides a brief pictorial overview of the various types of materials and patterns that hickory furniture makers originally used for woven seats, backs and panels.
Weave Materials
Hickory furniture manufacturers used four major materials for weaving from the early 1900s through the 1950s.
1. Hickory bark. The inner bark of hickory trees was the earliest material used on woven hickory furniture in the first decades of the 20th century. Often the margins of the hickory bark strips on early furniture are wavy and irregular.
There was a resurgence of the use of hickory bark in the 1940s-1950s. The edges of the later hickory bark weave were more even than the earlier hickory bark strips, perhaps reflecting the use of improved cutting tools.
2. Rattan cane. Quarter round strips of Asian rattan cane with a smooth, glossy surface became the preferred weave material of hickory furniture manufacturers in the 1930s.
Although not common, some hickory furniture was woven with a mixture of rattan cane and hickory bark:
3.Reed. Flat reed, which is made from the inner core of the rattan palm, came into use for weaving hickory furniture in the 1920s.
This example of woven flat reed has a thick layer of applied glossy finish which masks the texture of the reed:
Below is an example of woven flat reed that has a thinner overcoat, so its fibrous texture is more visible:
4. Fiber splint, also called Simonite (named after Luther A. Simons, the owner of Columbus Hickory Furniture Company who is credited with inventing it) was made from wood fiber. It was introduced in the late 1930s when it was hard for U.S. importers to get rattan from Japan and China while they were at war with one another in the years leading up to World War II.
A few additional materials that sometimes turn up on original hickory furniture are twine, used only on footstools, and nylon webbing, which was used on limited production designs in the 1940s-50s.
Weave Patterns
In addition to using a variety of weave materials, hickory furniture manufacturers also used several weaving designs. Here are examples of the most common weave patterns:
1. Herringbone weave and its variations (e.g., different numbers of strands carried over and under, diamond patterns, etc.) is a tight weave in which there are no gaps between the strands.
2. Open weave (also called porch weave) has spaces between the strands. This weaving technique came into use around 1940, and tended to be favored more by Old Hickory Furniture Company of Martinsville, Indiana than by the other hickory manufacturers.
3. Basket weave was a less common technique, typically rendered in a one over/one under pattern.
Clues in the Weave
Examining the original weave on a piece of hickory furniture can provide clues about which manufacturer produced the piece. For instance, most fiber splint was used by Indiana Willow Furniture Company, which typically dyed it green and red. Columbus Hickory Furniture Company of Bedford also favored fiber splint.
The rattan cane used by Indiana Hickory Furniture Company of Colfax often had dark strands mixed in with the more common golden strands of rattan. This company also almost exclusively wove their rattan in a herringbone pattern. While Rustic Hickory Furniture Company also commonly used a herringbone pattern, they used more flat reed than the other companies.
Although there were constraints such as labor and material costs and availability that helped determine which type of materials and which patterns were used on different pieces of hickory furniture, the designers employed by hickory furniture companies no doubt specified their preferences. More often than not, the most aesthetically appropriate weave seems to have been chosen to complement the overall design and style of the piece of hickory furniture or accessory on which it appeared.
