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Bending techniques

When we did our Pietenpol ribs we made a little steam box and cooked them for 20 min and they bent easily. Check out youtube for ideas

Glenn
 
Both water soak for a period of time and then stick them in the steamer pipe before bending. Blue Swallow Aircraft has a some very good DVD's on aircraft wood working. One of the segments in the DVD is steam bending.
 
Sponz, I live in North Petersburgh, pretty close. Stop by some time and I'll tell you why you shouldn't listen to Glenn :lol:

Tim
 
I did a combination of lamination and steam bending on the bows on my wood wings. Wood was soaked in a PVC pipe for about 20 minutes than the wood was bent over a hot piece of exhaust pipe (heating element in side). As you rock the wood against the pipe the water in contact with the pipe boils to steam and is forced up into the wood. As you rock the wood you will feel the wood fibers go slack and soft and the wood bends nicely. Dab some water on the wood so the side touching the hot pipe has water to boil up and so the wood won't burn. After bent close to shape, clamp in a jig to dry. Two pieces of 3/8" ash are bent this way than laminated in a jig matching the wing tip bow. After removing my bows from the jig there was no spring back at all. I made the jig with a slightly tighter curve so when installed I simply pulled them open about an inch and the fit nice and snug. I have pictures of the process on my web site if you are interested. Here's a link to the page: http://marty2plus2.com/past-posts-and-pictures-by/june-19-2010.html The date was June 19, 2010 and can be found under Past Posts on my home page at the top. Hope this helps, I learned this technique building acoustic guitars many years ago.

Marty57

finished bow.jpg
 

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I do alot of bending building sleigh runners and dashers. I've found that I prefer to steam and laminate. I cut into about 1/4" thick strips and steam, then bend over a form. They are laminated when dry. I can manipulate the grain to result in a much stronger piece when done.


 
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