How to prepare hickory bark for seat weaving

My remote students are getting closer to finishing up their chairs.

While I'm busy teaching here next week (there's still an open spot and a set of cherry parts ready to go it you want to blow off work to make a chair - https://www.jointeffort.net/learn), they've got a couple weeks to get their arms on and maybe put a couple coats of finish on the frame before we start weaving seats.

But they've already got weaving on their minds. And this round of students seem to favor hickory bark.

Good quality hickory bark is getting harder to find.

I mean, it does grow on trees, so it's not too hard to find. But harvesting is a lot of work. So most of my students will have to buy it from somewhere. And that means they're going to have to do some extra work prepping it for weaving.

That was the one big question in this week's meeting.

If we aren't harvesting this stuff ourselves, what should we do to get the bark ready for weaving?

This 20 minute video goes into great detail on the subject of bark prep.

You'll learn how long to soak it. Whether to use hot or cold water. How to shave it to get a gleaming finished surface. How to store it until you're ready to weave.

And, at around the 4 minute mark, you'll learn how much bark you'll need to weave a several different sizes of seats.

If you'd like to join a small group of students as part of a remote Berea Ladderback class, please hit reply and let me know. We're getting started next month and should be wrapped up in 10-12 weeks.