Steam Bending Newbie

[alex grams]

I am going to make a table with a 3" tall skirt that has some bends at about an 18" diameter. The wood is oak and I have done laminate work in the past for items like this, however I would like to stay away from the glue mess that is laminate, and possibly route a bead on the wood, so laminate is high risk with any bubbles where I would route.

I am doing two full circles (4 pieces per circle) at this diameter. Is steam building worth the time and effort to make a setup? Would oak work at this radius in 3/4", or would I need to do it with thinner wood (1/2"?)

Thanks in advance.

I figure once I build the setup it would take less time/effort than cutting/planing down planks of wood and all of the work associated with gluing up a lot of laminate sheets.

Thanks in advance.

Also, any pics of items done with steam building or your setups would be appreciated.

[John TenEyck]

What little experience I have with steam bending showed me it's hard to obtain precision in any piece, much less trying to make identical multiples. Laminating has proven much higher precision for me. 18" diameter seems pretty tight to steam bend 3/4" stock, as well, so I'd be thinking about laminating if I had to do this. If you want a solid bottom edge to route a bead on you could add segmented solid stock to the completed lamination. Maybe someone with a bunch of steam bending experience will jump in and tell you how easy this is to do. It just doesn't seem so to me.

[Kevin Groenke]

Is it Red Oak, White Oak or other? IME, White Oak steam bends significantly better than Red. If you can find air dried stock, you can probably make an 18" dia bend in either species, but if you can only get kiln dried stock, you may be looking at a frustrating exercise, especially if you're working in Red Oak.

Look for articles by Micheal Fortune
and
The Complete Manual of Wood Bending, by Lon Schleining.

Is it worth it? That depends: do you have something to make steam, will you do this with any frequency, do you have a source of air dried stock, do you want to try something new and potentially frustrating or are you more comfortable with something familiar....


-kg

[Mike Cutler]

Alex

Combine the two methods, laminate and steam bending.
Resaw some 1/4" thick pieces of the oak from an 6/4 or 8/4 board, Keeping track of the individual pieces and their orientation as resawn.
Take the 3 pieces and steam bend them together for about an hour. ( Tage Frid's timetable ) Put the three pieces onto the bending form and bend them together. All of your grains should match up as if you were steam bending a single board. Keep the material on the form for 24 hours.
Remove the material from the form, there should be a slight amount of spring back, but the boards should conform easily to the form.
Glue up the boards on the bending form, in the order they were bent, paying attention to the grain and keeping it oriented properly.

I realize that there are a lot of extra steps her than just bending a single board, but this method produces virtually zero spring back, making it very predictable. I have steam bent, and laminated, kiln dried face sawn soft maple this way and it works. Qsawn white oak has better bending properties than maple, so you shouldn't have any issues.

One tip;
If yopu are looking for an 18" outside diameter, the bending form needs to be 17-1/4". It's an easy concept to forget,. ( BTDT)

[John TenEyck]

Combine the two methods, laminate and steam bending.

How obvious. Why didn't I think of it? I'm going to remember this. Thanks.

[alex grams]

mike,
I had given that some consideration in doing a hybrid approach. Another advantage is I could use QSWO as the base layers and then a top layer of whatever oak I want to use, and then that also allows me to match the outter layers from piece to piece with a continuous grain pattern.

I have done laminate gluing before with clamps, but have a vacuum system now I would like to incorporate, but it takes so many clamps and come alongs to hold the wood down that I would have a hard time eliminating any dangerous sharp edges before putting the items in a vacuum bag, but with steam bending ply's first it would eliminate a lot of the initial spring so I wouldn't need as many clamps and run less risk of something hurting my bag.

I didn't like the clamps/come-alongs the first time, they didn't always get 100% even coverage and I had a few smaller gaps in some of the layers.

Hmm, need a burner and metal gas can, or I may just use the over burner on my gas grill!

[Michael Panis]

Alex


One tip;
If yopu are looking for an 18" outside diameter, the bending form needs to be 17-1/4". It's an easy concept to forget,. ( BTDT)

Maybe I interpreted the goal incorrectly, but I think the form needs to have a 16 1/2" diameter. Even if the form is only a 1/4 circle, the table will have the board run all around it. With a 3/4" board, an outside diameter of 18" needs 18" - 2 x 3/4" = 16 1/2" inside diameter.

---Mike

[Mike Cutler]

Maybe I interpreted the goal incorrectly, but I think the form needs to have a 16 1/2" diameter. Even if the form is only a 1/4 circle, the table will have the board run all around it. With a 3/4" board, an outside diameter of 18" needs 18" - 2 x 3/4" = 16 1/2" inside diameter.

---Mike

Michael

You are correct. I misread diameter for radius. A diameter of 18" would have an inside diameter of 16.5 if the material is 3/4".

[Josh Richard]

mike,

Hmm, need a burner and metal gas can, or I may just use the over burner on my gas grill!

I teach in a high school. We acquired a wallpaper steamer to produce the steam. It worked GREAT! Each day we bent two 1/4" oak planks for a toboggan. We were very pleased with the result and how easy it was to plug in the steamer and not worry about a flame.

[Brian Tymchak]

There is a product called Bendable Wood if you are willing to travel a path less traditional in woodworking..

I have no experience with it. Just know what I've read on their website after somone posted about it here at SMC. Would certainly eliminate a glue up mess, and also eliminate any need to build a steam chamber. But who knows what other issues there might be working with it. I'm kinda looking for an excuse to buy it and play with it.

...Seems incredible that they can bend a 1/2" board to a 2 1/2" radius...

[Paul Campanis]

The "bendable wood" works well.
We have some here.