3 Attachment(s)
Stem – Steam Bending Complete
It was all a bit of an anti-climax I’d have to say. I had been concerned on a number of fronts. :? The first being had I enough steam to do the job with my steam box set up. There was no issues at all there……. one relief. The second was the ability of the KD T. Oak to bend without snapping. I realised too late that the original boards had the grain running in the wrong direction to give me the grain parallel to the bend after re-sawing. The result was the grain at 90 degrees to the bend in my laminates. :doh: So…a mild concern….not! :B The soaking was no longer an idea but now was a must. To assist matters further I knocked of the corners as suggested by Richard previously.
As mentioned previously the water bath I made was not big enough to do all the laminates at once so I dunked only half of them in thinking that if things go wrong I had only committed half the expense of the wood. I needn’t have worried. The steaming process the next evening went very smoothly and the timber came out of the box after 15-20 mins and wrapped around the jig no problem. This was completed with some help from my son to hold onto the laminates while I worked them around the jig putting clamps on as I went. It was all over in about 10 minutes and had plenty of time thereafter to adjust clamps etc to achieve full contact all around the jig.
The next step was to do the balance of the required laminates. Here I was concerned that if I let the clamps go to put the new ones on I would lose the existing bend. New idea! :roll:Considering the bulk of the timber is only required in half the length of the stem I could cut the remaining laminates down and bend them in place without letting go the end clamps. I should be paid money for this. It worked out just fine with the help of some small jigs to keep the laminates in contact. See pics. To top it all off I didn’t soak the last lot in water and also forgot to knock the edges off but around they went…no problem.:2tsup:
I had finished them last Sunday and so to the next concern…..when I let the clamps go to glue up will they go back without breaking? I had completed the jig on a separate board away from the lofting and realized that maybe I would need more room when it came time to glue up so I decided to move everything back to the lofting. I did this last night after covering the lofting with a lot more plastic sheet, taped up the jig so the glue wouldn’t stick and let the laminates loose of the clamps and put them back with no worries.
Attachment 385528 Attachment 385527 Attachment 385526
So finally I‘m at the end of the steam bending saga with just all the worry about the glue up to come. I’ll leave the wood in the jig for another few days so that it definitely gets the idea that this new shape should be how it will be from now on. One further point….when relocating everything I have allowed for a small amount of spring back. Not much, about 5mm at the top and about 3mm at the bottom. All guess work but I have plenty to work with. We’ll see.