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.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:26:40 -0500, 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.


I'm going to get flamed for saying this. I read an article some
years ago about bending wood in ammonia. The guy who wrote the
article put wood/ammonia in a freezer for a while, pulled it out and
with gloves on, bent that stick of wood by hand into a pretzel.

I tried it at the school I was at. I put a strip of oak in a sealed
tupperware container, Dropped in my freezer for a day (24 hr). Took
it outside, opened the container and with gloves on and the wood down
wind I bent it into a tight horse shoe. I laid it on the ground with
a brick propped on top and waited an hour or so. The wood held it's
shape very nicely. The tannin (some) in the oak leached into the
ammonia but the oak colour was actually very nice. I used household
ammonia which is fairly weak stuff.

I always though that if I wanted to bend a large piece, I would make
a clamping jig and use a long trough lined with plastic out side in
the dead of winter to accomplish the same thing.

Do a search on wood bending. You'll find all sorts of ways to bend
wood green or dry.

P

Green ash, steamed for 1/2-1hr. Be quick when taking it from your steam box
to bend it around the "U" form. Clamp. Make the "u" form a bit smaller than
you want for the finished item as you will get some spring back. Cheers, JG


clare at snyder.on.ca wrote in message
...
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.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com

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.

On Sat, 02 Feb 2008 01:26:40 -0500, 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.

Green wood bends easily. Ash have very good steam bending qualities.
I have bent oak, walnut, and maple in a tighter radius than 9".
Usually, I will rip thin (1/8") strips, steam them, set them into a
jig to dry, then glue up a lamination. This makes a *very* strong
piece.

On Sat, 2 Feb 2008 14:07:26 -0600, samson wrote:

In article , jstevens77
says...
Green ash, steamed for 1/2-1hr. Be quick when taking it from your steam box
to bend it around the "U" form. Clamp. Make the "u" form a bit smaller than
you want for the finished item as you will get some spring back. Cheers, JG


clare at snyder.on.ca wrote in message
...
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.

Agreed. Stay away from the gimmicky solutions (fabric
softener, eg), and make a good steam box.

S.
How about an autoclave at 170 degrees. Would that work? A friend has
one for vulcanizing neoprene.

--
Posted via a free Usenet account from http://www.teranews.com