Making a Toboggan (illustrating the steam bending process)

[Frank Pellow]

Earlier this month, I attended a toboggan making course at my local Lee Valley store.

It was a two part course. During the first part, we steamed and bent the wood then, a week later; we took the wood off the forms, and assembled the toboggans. Everyone attending the course exited with a toboggan and, for a small additional charge to cover material, I exited with the bent wood that will allow me to build a second toboggan in the future.

The main purpose of the course was to learn to steam and bend wood, producing a toboggan was just a bonus. The course was taught by John Robinson who is a well known Windsor Chair craftsman. John teaches chair making classes in both Canada and the USA and some of his chairs have been featured in Fine Woodworking.

We made the toboggans with relatively green ash that John cut on his bandsaw shortly before the course.

The toboggan making process is best illustrated with pictures. Five are attached to this post and more will follow in the next post.

(1) We first marked the ash to show best orientation and position of cross pieces. Then we planed the edges and scraped the sides a bit. Next, the boards were placed into the (home made) steam box.

(2) The boards were steamed for about an hour. Here is another view of the box.

(3) The boards were (very carefully) bent over a circular form

(4) Then, they were tied down. That's John Robinson in the background.

(5) Finally, the boards were clamped in a couple of places. This assembly was allowed to dry for a week.

[Frank Pellow]

The second part of the course was straightforward scrapping, sanding, and assembly.
(6) This is a photo of the toboggan as it was when I brought it home.This week I "finished" the toboggan at home. Tomorrow, I will take it to my daughter Kristel's home near Ottawa and give it to my granddaughter.
(7) In this photo, I am burning name into the toboggan.

(8) The next step was to finish the toboggan with 3 coats of clear Varathane and with two coats of wax on the bottom. This is a photo of taken after that stage (along with the second toboggan still in the form).

(9) Finally here is the toboggan decked out with ropes and a pad and all ready to go.

[Karl Laustrup]

Very nice, Frank. I'll bet Jamie will really like that. I'll even bet it'll be the fastest toboggan around. And it will be a treasured keepsake for Jamie, that her kids and grandkids can use.

How about some pics of her using it when you give it to her?

[Lou Morrissette]

Nice job, Frank. Looks like a fun project. You mentioned that you used green ash. Would the steaming and bending work as well on seasoned ash?

Lou

[Frank Pellow]

Nice job, Frank. Looks like a fun project. You mentioned that you used green ash. Would the steaming and bending work as well on seasoned ash?

Lou
Lou, yes it was a lot of fun!

Our instructor said that most kiln dried wood will not steam properly because most kiln drying is rushed resulting in "case hardened" wood. Air dried should be OK. I guess that properly kiln dried would be OK if you could get it.

[Jim Wolfe]

Very nice Frank ,
Boy can I remember the days. using a toboggan, one of the longer ones, packing about 8 teenagers and going down the hill. What fun that was. Now the kids mostly use the inflatable ones that you can get at any store such as walmart.
One of the guys I work with wants to make Marsh Skies , he does alot of duck and goose hunting. How thick was the ash that you bent for the toboggan , did it conform easyly to your form ? and how long did you have to keep it clamped up?
Jim

[Mark Singer]

Frank,

Great work! Well done!!

[Mark Stutz]

Frank,
What a great project. Heard on the radio here that it was 40 degrees below zero in Ottowa! :( Is it really that cold?

[Pete Lamberty]

Frank, that is a great project! I'll bet it was fun to make. All of us from the mid west to the north east could use one this weekend. Lots of snow here. Really a neat project. What is the diameter of the round form? It looks like a piece of pvc pipe. How thick and wide is each ash board?

[Frank Pellow]

Very nice Frank ,
Boy can I remember the days. using a toboggan, one of the longer ones, packing about 8 teenagers and going down the hill. What fun that was. Now the kids mostly use the inflatable ones that you can get at any store such as walmart.
One of the guys I work with wants to make Marsh Skies , he does alot of duck and goose hunting. How thick was the ash that you bent for the toboggan , did it conform easyly to your form ? and how long did you have to keep it clamped up?
Jim
The ash is about 3/8 of an inch thick. Notice also, that it is close to quarter sawn.

If you took care bending the wood, it did conform easily. I bent 10 boards with no problems, but some others did split some of their boards while trying to bend them. They either put pressure in the wrong place, waited too long before bending, or moved too fast while bending. I would say about 1 in 7 bendings did not work properly.

I kept the wood clamped for 7 nights.

[Greg Mann]

Frank,

It is interesting how similar things are done in different ways. In our skin-on-frame kayaks the ribs (oak) are steamed for 3 minutes before bending. They are 1/4 inch thick and also as close to quartersawn as possible. The difference is that they are soaked for a week ahead of time to drive the moisture back into the wood. I suppose this has the effect of making them 'green' again, the water content allowing a migration path for the steam into the interior of the wood. In this case, steaming for even five minutes turns the rib into a cooked noodle.

Greg

[Frank Pellow]

Frank,
What a great project. Heard on the radio here that it was 40 degrees below zero in Ottowa! :( Is it really that cold?
It does get that cold in Ottawa and region. But right now it is a sunny balmy -23 (which I think is about -10 Fahrenheit). Perfect weather for a toboggan ride. :)

[Bob Smalser]

Cool, Frank.

Boats are next.

http://pic3.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/2595357/29569137.jpg

[Frank Pellow]

...
What is the diameter of the round form? It looks like a piece of pvc pipe. How thick and wide is each ash board?
The form does use PVC pipe and it is about 8 inches in diameter.
Each piece starts out about 3/8 inch thicke and about 2 and 5/8 inches wide.

[Frank Pellow]

Lou, yes it was a lot of fun!

Our instructor said that most kiln dried wood will not steam properly because most kiln drying is rushed resulting in "case hardened" wood. Air dried should be OK. I guess that properly kiln dried would be OK if you could get it.
After making the above response, I decided to read the detailed hand-out that we had been given when attending the course. It turns out that no kiln dried wood should be steam bent. Here is a quaote from the handout:

Kiln-dried wood must not be used; the lignin in the wood has been permanently set during the hot dry kilning process. No amount of steaming or soaking will weeken the lignum bond sufficienntly for sucessful bending. The same applies for air dried wood that has been allowed to dry and stabilize below 10% moisture content.

[Bob Smalser]

Kiln-dried wood must not be used; the lignin in the wood has been permanently set during the hot dry kilning process. No amount of steaming or soaking will weeken the lignum bond sufficienntly for sucessful bending. The same applies for air dried wood that has been allowed to dry and stabilize below 10% moisture content.


I wouldn't go that far. Kilned wood is steambent successfully every day. Higher failure rates, but hardly impossible.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Great job Frank!

[Chris Padilla]

Nice project...I see such a need in my future...wife doesn't like anything straight... :)

[Frank Pellow]

Cool, Frank.

Boats are next.


Right you are Bob! I do want to make a boat (a somewhat streamlined rowing boat) and that was part of the reason that I took this course.

[Bob Smalser]

Right you are Bob! I do want to make a baot (a somewhat streamlined rowing boat) and that was part of the reason that I took this course.

I'd recommend a 6-hour canoe to start...just to get the hang of laying out bent wood. PLus it'll give the family something quick to play with while the major project is being built.

http://www.psnw.com/~jmrudholm/6hrcanoe.html

For a sleek, go-fast rowboat that'll also take a sliding seat, I like the Hereshoff Modified Rowboat drawn by John Gardner in his Building Classis Small Craft Volume II.

Or for rough water/surf the Chamberlain Gunning Dory in Gardner's Volume I.

A Whitehall did and would do both, but carvel trailer boats aren't always the best ideas and the Whitehall is a much more difficult hull than the above two.

[Harry Green]

Lou, yes it was a lot of fun!

Our instructor said that most kiln dried wood will not steam properly because most kiln drying is rushed resulting in "case hardened" wood. Air dried should be OK. I guess that properly kiln dried would be OK if you could get it.
I remember as a kid watching an old guy make a toboggan out of green birch .He buried the boards in a manure pile for a week then put them on a jig he had made up. that was about 50 years ago but I remember the toboggan was around for a long time

[Jay Lewis]

Frank, Thanks for taking the time to post these detailed instructions. I just finished assembling my toboggan today and mostly used your instruction to build it. I bent 11 boards to get 7 good ones (splintered 4), but had fun making it. The hardest part was getting quarter sawn ash that hasn't been kiln dried, but in my search for the wood I made a new friend who is a fellow whitewater paddler and owner of a mill. Here is me bending the wood http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=272679855/PictureID=6562090247/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141 and here is the finished producthttp://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=272679855/PictureID=6562090247/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=272679855/PictureID=6562090247/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=272679855/PictureID=6562090247/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141http://www2.snapfish.com/slideshow/AlbumID=272679855/PictureID=6562090247/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141 note the plastic hard hats! I was going to give it to the family for Christmas but we got about a foot of snow on the ground now so I gave it to them early. My wife and I took the boys down our hill this evening and we had a ball! What a fun project. Thanks again,
Jay Lewis

If the photos don't work the album can be viewed here http://www2.snapfish.com/thumbnailshare/AlbumID=272679855/a=114421141_114421141/t_=114421141

[Kyle Skov]

Thank you for posting the Toboggan. I have just bent planks for making my own, and I am curious about how the cross pieces were fastened to the planks. I was going to use 8x3/4 stainless screws countersunk from the bottom.

What does everyone think?

[Beau Schless]

I'm in the process of building a toboggan and will use green white oak. Do you think the soaking is worthwhile? My intention was to just build a steam box (out of rigid insulation). But since I need it anyway I could make it water tight and soak the boards for a couple of days before steaming them. Do you think it might help in the bending process? They are 5/16" x 2" thick.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Beau,

Welcome to the Creek!

The OP (originator) is no longer a member here and doesn't have posting privileges so you won't get a reply from him. Hopefully other members have the experience and will respond to your question.

[Bob Smalser]

I'm in the process of building a toboggan and will use green white oak. Do you think the soaking is worthwhile? My intention was to just build a steam box (out of rigid insulation). But since I need it anyway I could make it water tight and soak the boards for a couple of days before steaming them. Do you think it might help in the bending process? They are 5/16" x 2" thick.

Not necessary and won't compensate for the grain runout that causes 99% of steambending failures. (grain has to be dead straight on both the face and the edge) But it also won't hurt. If you're gonna soak it, it'll take over a week to make any appreciable difference in MC if your stock is less than fully green.

Because grain runout can be difficult to read, I recommend folks split out bending stock from fresh logs using hammer and wedges followed by the froe to split off sapwood and pith. Then rick the balks to air dry before jointing and surface planing.

Just to show you that hundred-year-old bone dry wood can be bent, too. I do it regularly:

http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL12/1104763/21637099/356506887.jpg

[Bill Bukovec]

How thick are the bent pieces?

I remember riding a tobaggan as a kid, until we hit that rock....

Bill

[Beau Schless]

I'm in the process of building a toboggan (largely thanks to your pictures...very helpful!) I noticed a couple of things and had questions...

1) It looks like each slat is spaced 1/8" or so from the next one. Is there a reason for that? Would you have been happy to butt them up next to each other?

2) If you used green wood and put 3 coats of varnish on them how does the wood every dry out? Have you had any issues with the varnish lifting or the wood cupping?

3) What do you put on the bottom to fill the wood grain? Are the three coats enough?