Kofod Larsen / Selig lounge chair re-caning help  

I have the same chair and mine sits patiently waiting for me to find someone to do the caining job. mine however has an upholstered seat done in the original Naugahyde. Luckily the seat is in good shape. I'm in the Northwest near Seattle and I hope you end up with a lead you can share. I'm not confident enough to tackle the job myself. I have a very good copy of the correct style for the back and I'd be happy to send a copy to you if you need it. I had a machine shop make me the small tool for removing the security screw that will separate your cained back from the chair frame. I tried many different things to remove that screw without any luck. I'm happy to loan it. My chair sits dismantled and waiting.....

I did two of these a while back (with upholstered seats) and used the thread below as a guide.
http://www.designaddict.com/forum/General-discussion/Replacing-Rattan-Bi...
The seats look to be done the same way as the backs in the advertising picture. Yours look like they were done differently and it looks significantly more work intensive....like weaving danish papercord with rattan. I can't even imagine trying that.
I posted some pics of the chairs I did before/during/after. It was a lot of work and cane is a pain in the ass to work with...but its totally doable. Happy to answer any questions you may have.

I have a pair of these as well. Mine have some loose joints, and were painted an awful green. They are canned seats like yours Rachel. I am hoping to dive into this project over the winter months. I have a question for you. I cannot find a picture of the underside of these chairs anywhere, I would like to know/see how the seat frame attaches to the chair sides. Is there any way you could snap a few photos from the bottom front and rear showing how these seat frames attach? It would be greatly appreciated. I planned on starting a thread seeking info/help from the knowledgeable folks around here once I started. I really like these chairs!

Jesgord, that close weave isn't all that difficult. I redid four Wegner cowhorn chairs awhile back as my first project with rattan (this size is binder cane, actually) and the hardest part was figuring out how to start a cane and finish it with a minimum of brads. The actual weave was easy---the cane is so flat and thin and smooth that is slips right into place. You just have to remember to weave with the grain of the cane, which you can figure out by feeling the node. It has a little tail end that will stick up if you go against the grain. There are probably pics online of this.
Oh, and soaking it--but that's probably covered in that thread you linked to.

I just realized what I responded may be misleading. When I say " mine seats are canned like yours" I mean the seats are not upholstered. Only remants of cane remain. And in my search for another example the Selig ad you posted is all I could find. As Jesgord said I plan to weave the seat and back in the same manner. As per the ad. Sorry for any confusion.

Thank you so much everyone for your input and offers so far. It is really appreciated.
Hazelnut - Unfortunately I am in London otherwise I'd be happy to offer to help. Great idea you had about the security nut key though, I was wondering about how to get those off. I shall have to find someone UK based to do the same for me. I would absolutely love to get the info off you regarding the original back style though. I agree with the others in that the ad shows the weave the same all over, so even though it may not be as durable that way I think thats what I'm going to run with. Will also mean less cane which is a bonus 🙂
Jesgord - I can't believe I missed your post from before! Your chair looks beautiful now and the leather seat is very fetching indeed.
csc23 - I'll happily post more pictures of the chair if it helps. To be honest, the seat attachment is the only disappointing part of this chair as (on mine anyway) it's just two blocks of wood that are screwed into the underneath of the seat and then these screw into the frame on the inside near the back. The front of the seat rests on the rails. Will upload pictures once I get a chance to take some a bit later this evening. Did the cane remnants on your chairs give any clues? Or were they too far gone to be able to tell?
thanks again everyone

I beg to differ about the weave in the original advert. You can definitely see much more light through the back weave and not the seat weave. You can see the seat weave is tighter. I would say it is just like the OP's chairs.
Am I crazy?

Well I believe mine has the same seat attachment. From memory it was a 4-6" block of wood with a small bevel on exposed edges. The screws appeared correct for the timeframe, but I figured it was a later addition. Due to the clunkiness. Maybe Spanky can chime in as to whether the weave on the back and seat appear similar/and would hold up long term? I do think the weave appears different now that I have seen your chair. Yours does appear to have the same amount of age seat/back. This might also explain the clunky seat attachment. Tighter weave not as easy to see. With the loose weave of the back you would see that block clear as day. Not the best look IMO

Leif - I looked at that ad for a long time and found it hard to decide either way. What convinced me was that in the ad you can definitely see the shape of the leg through the seat weave, whereas how mine is done you can't see a thing through it as it's a solid unbroken piece of weave. The seats in the ad also have the little dark marks periodically long the seat weave edge - looking like a shadow/space in the weave. What I can't tell is whether this spacing is the same or slightly less than the back.

* Small correction - you can't see anything through the weave from the side. Oddly from the front you can.

There are different weave patterns other than the really open one on the chair back and the most dense one that I showed in my photos. I don't think you'd be able to see much of anything through the densest weave when it is new (as in the chair in the ad). Maybe with use the cane would sag enough so that there was more space between the individual canes, making it possible to see through it a little, as in your chair.
I would not do an open weave on a seat, ever--aside from less attractive blocks showing from the underside, there's that question of durability. The fewer strands of cane there are, the more weight each strand has to support and the sooner it will wear out and break.
I think the biggest thing for me is that the cane on yours just looks really old. It is possible that it was rewoven but it would have to have been done a really long time ago. Most cane is rewoven after decades of use when it finally wears out. While it's possible that it could have been redone early in the chair's life, like if some moron put his foot through it, it's far more likely that it's the original cane. That's not a definitive answer, I know---but it's the kind of thing I factor in when trying to figure out stuff like this.

If you are going to do the seat in the tight weave this video might be helpful

I second that I would pretty strongly guess the seat is original. There is also the fact that generally when something gets redone, the original pattern will be followed--at least more or less.
I think when you combine these two factors, you get a pretty high likelihood that that is the original weave.
It is possible that the factory changed the weave after taking those photos. Perhaps for better durability by weaving in more cane, or perhaps the direction of the warp and weft was changed, which as noted by the OP above would change the amount of light coming through the cane.
It is also possible that the advertising photo was manipulated to add a bit more leg. I can imagine this would be psychologically desirable because the mind wants to see all 4 legs, even if 1 is just a hint of leg.