Wood Bending?

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:37 am

Well I usually build the cases by cutting the side walls separately, routing out where the back and front panels go and using a miter joint to glue them together. Works pretty well and looks great.

However, I would like try something different. I want to bend a piece of 1/16" Hardwood (Like Mahogany or something or the like) The piece of hardwood would be around 5" wide and 8" long.

I was thinking of making a positive and negative mold and then steaming the piece of lumber and place it in the mold. I know there will be spring back but how tight can I make this bend as it will be against the grain? I am hoping for at least a 3/4" radius bend.

Possible? Or am I mad?

btw I posted this on a wood working forum but I wanted to see if anyone here has done wood bending before? This is new territory for me.

APHawkes · Post by **APHawkes** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 11:59 am

I dunno, man, that's a pretty tight curve. I'm assuming you're going to use 2 or 3 ply for strength. You may have to do it in stages - steam it, bend it, steam it while bent, bend it some more, etc.

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:14 pm

Splintering is going to be your enemy. I imagine you will be best with green wood as that will be more tolerant of bending than a dry wood. My thoughts might be to get some wood as thin as you possibly can, boil it in a pan, bend a corner around a right angle, using steam from a kettle when wood starts to dry a bit; and applying this to wood like you normally prepare; you get the effect of the wrapped wood but without the hassle. The thicker the wood the more chance of splintering.

How about trying something entirely different; vacuum forming?

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 2:23 pm

bacteria wrote: How about trying something entirely different; vacuum forming?

I don't like plastic. One of the chief reasons I use wood is cause it looks nice and very few people use wood enclosures. Plus good workmanship shows in wood as you can't mess up. If you cut into the wood by accident theres no redo button in the form of bondo.

Ok the plan of attack is this.

*Cut the wood to be bent to 1/16" which is the bare minimal for anything structural with wood.
*At the ends resaw it to 1/32", this is where the bend will take place.
*Place inside the steam box (I will use a boil pot of water and a vegetable steamer as the first test)
*Remove and place on molds. Clamp together.
*About 2 hours or so remove clamps and remove now bent piece of wood.
*Because of flex, place a epoxy behind the 1/32" part of the wood and reclamp for over night. Make sure to use wax paper inbetween the wood and mold for anti stick.

This should work. Going to give it a test run when i get home.

edit\\ instead of epoxy I could just stick another 1/32" piece of wood and just laminate the sides?

bacteria · Post by **bacteria** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:04 pm

Keep us updated with pics please of your progress, whether it succeeds or fails.

Tibia · Post by **Tibia** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 3:44 pm

Man, I wish my piano repair partner was still speaking to me. lol He's got a great book about how Steinway does it on their grands. They're curve-forming two inches of laminated oak. I only got to peek at it once, but it seems that they use steam pressing.

Lemme do some quick research and see what I can come up with. I'm not sure you'd have to go quite as thin as you're thinking.

SonyPortableizer · Post by **SonyPortableizer** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:34 pm

I dont know if this helps, but when I bend wood I heat it up in steam/water really hot, and let it sit for a while
Then I Use patience, an table where the two sides can close together and slowly bend it, then to hold it Ill (Dont yell at me) sit on it until it gets a good bend(Still on that bench, then I continue to weigh it down with old text books
Works great on bigger pieces
But could help for an idea in this tight bend

Rekarp · Post by **Rekarp** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:39 pm

Success! First test worked great.

The piece of wood. This is some scrap from the Duo. It is 3/32" thick curled maple same thickness as whats on the Duo.

Test steam chamber. The piece of metal is some flashing for roofing and the can is filled with water to hold the flashing down so it doesn't jump all over the place when the water boils.

The wood gets placed on that flashing.

After 20 minutes of steaming I took it out and rubber banded it around a salt shaker that happened to have a radius of .8" (close enough for this test).

After letting it cool I removed the bands and got this! It relaxed a bit but If I mount a small frame inside the portable this shouldn't be a problem.

jleemero · Post by **jleemero** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 5:42 pm

Very cool!

I hope to see this on your next project!

Gordon1 · Post by **Gordon1** » Wed Oct 22, 2008 8:14 pm

Nice to see you decided to go with the grain rather than against it. That could end up bad.