82 Woodworking Steambending wood: How much?
Description
This article is from the Woodworking FAQ Collection 1, by multiple authors.
82 Woodworking Steambending wood: How much?
Tis is the realm of black magick and I can't personally give you a
figure. One thing I DO know is this:
It's infinitely easier to unbend some wood that was overbent,
than it is to put MORE bend in a cool piece of wood (assuming you
don't have incredible leverage).
Once caveat: if you are bending pieces that will be glued together to
form a laminate, be sure that the jig is the exact shape you need at
glue time - I rarely get much springback from well bent, glued wood.
There are an infinite variety of jigs you can build. No matter what
type you choose, you can't go wrong if you own a clamp making factory
- you can never have too many clamps. If you are bending wood greater
than 1/2 inch thick you must see to it that the jig is built extremely
strongly: the amount of stress on it is quite high.
Quite often people will use a metal strap along the outside of the
wood as they bend. This helps to distribute the stesses along the
length of the wood and helps to prevent cracking. This is especially
true if you get grain runout at the outside edges.
Well that's all i can think of now. If i think of more I'll add it to
the FAQ.
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