On Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 10:57:03 PM UTC-5, Michael wrote:
On Tuesday, January 16, 2018 at 12:58:48 PM UTC-6, Electric Comet wrote:
at a medium scale furniture maker that did a lot of bending

the old guys did all the work by skill alone

in other words they had no formulas they just knew the right amount
of moisture needed before they tried the bend

well these old craftsman were about to retire and so they hired new
guys

the new guys had a hard time picking up that skill and decided to
measure everything

thought the old guys might balk but they encouraged the new guys and
were actually glad because they could retire sooner than they thought

the chair backs they make are very nice

What's the moisture content of the wood before steam bending? What's your drying process after? Someday I'd like to make a captain's chair.

A brief description can be found here -
https://www.leevalley.com/us/html/05F1501ie.pdf