You'll need a heck of a steam box--- and LOT'S of steam! I suspect
white oak would work well, too. 3/8" thick wood is going to dry and
cool pretty quickly, so you'll need to practice every move. They tell
me that it's the heat that actually makes the wood bendable, but since
the heat also dries the wood out, the steam is a good thing. It also
helps transmit the heat into the piece.
I wonder if, with this big a piece, you wouldn't be better off with
a shallow tray that you could fill with really hot water and keep it hot
for 20 minutes or so.
I tried steaming some smaller pieces using my wife's fabric steamer
and found it to be grossly inadequate. Ended up pouring hot, hot tap
water over the piece while blasting it with my heat gun on high for 7 or
8 minutes... But that was only 3/4" square by 36" long.

Pete Stanaitis
-----------------------

clare at snyder.on.ca wrote:

Anyone with any experience bending solid(not ply) 3/8" wood to roughly
9" radius? Peice is 12-15" wide and 4 feet long.
What's best? Elm? Green or air dried? Soaked, steamed or heated?
Bend around a solid buck? This is to be basically unsupported in
use(will have a base, but nothing else.
Think "bucket seat" "U" shaped back fastened to chair seat - the long
ends of the "U" being the armrest.