How to bend wood like this - Outdoor furniture project

[Alan Lightstone]

So, been busy working away on this (when I have time, which lately has been not enough). Ran into some interesting issues.

1.) I was getting very poor resaw pieces. Big variation in thickness. Looking more closely, my tall bandsaw fence really was making things worse in a way. My resaw fence had the same tall height past the blade until the end of the table.
Bandsaw Tall Resaw Fence 1.jpg
Made attaching it easier to the factory fence, but I clearly was running into the issue of the wood's internal tension pushing against the fence after the cut and moving the wood. So I cut off the fence about 2" or so after the blade, and that seemed to help. Thanks, Derek for that tip (and others).

2.) Processing 8' long 8/4 white oak is way too heavy for me. Really a bad idea. I was worried about more waste using 5/4 or 4/4 boards. But after several resaw cuts are made, the 8/4 board becomes a much lighter, thinner, easier to handle board. Really will use that approach in the future.

3.) I think, looking at the quality of the resawed boards as they come off the bandsaw, that my blade must be dull. I'm able to fix that with MULTIPLE runs through my wide-belt sander on a sled I built, but that also really reduces yield. I've had to make about .25" resaw cuts, and then sand them down with multiple runs through the wide-belt sander to get to a final thickness of about 0.15". Really wasteful of wood. I chose 0.15" thickness of the laminations as it's an even multiple of 1.5" final thickness, and it seemed I needed to go that thin to get smooth boards off my lousy resaw cuts (and should be able to bend, I hope, considering the kiln-dried white oak I am using.)

3.) I did get double-sized tape to work well keeping the wood on the sanding sled. I remove it with a squirt of denatured alcohol. Amazingly, I called the company's tech support and asked which solvent to use, and they had no idea. Eventually he through out mineral spirits, which does nothing, BTW.

4.) Steaming the pieces (I'm trying a few now to test) is annoying, and it is a massive rush to get them in the bending jig, but I can do two at a time.

5.) Now, my biggest issue. When on the bending jig, I tried for the first time two pieces at a time. But there is a big gap between pieces, despite tightening down the clamps and tightening the winch. How can I fix this? I have a piece of metal going all the way around the jig, in theory pushing the wood towards the form, but those gaps between pieces (which are sanded very smooth), are preventing this from being built.
Bending Wood on Frame with Gap 1.jpgBending Wood on Frame with Gap 2.jpgBending Wood on Frame with Gap 3.jpg

Now when that Australian woodworker was using a similar setup, he made a packer (I think that's what he called it) of multiple pieces of veneer and had that inside the metal sheet to even out the pressure. I didn't use that. Is that necessary? Is that what I need? It looks like I need more pressure on the wood, but I don't know how I can do that. Physically, I don't have the strength, for sure, and mechanical advantage doesn't seem to be enough here.