Making hoops

[Mike OMelia]

Ok, so I'm on my own here (swiveling bar stools). Lots of stools incorporate two or three wooden hoops. Like drum hoops. How are these made? I'm no stranger to bending, I build guitars. The ones I've inspected do not look like laminates. I can't believe someone would make these by bandsawing out of solid wood (or lathe turning). But bending does look like the answer. Help please,

Mike

[Todd Burch]

Hi Mike. I've made a bent, laminated hoop. Pretty easy.

I needed a hoop for when I offloaded my reusable and expensive 53 gallon Felder dust collector bags into cheap 33 gallon yard trash bags. I put the garbage bag around the hoop, holding it open, and spring clamp the bag/hoop to sawhorses and dump away. Works great.

First I determined the size hoop I needed. I think mine is 21" diameter. Maybe 15". Doesn't matter.

Then, I cut that (?) 21" diameter hole in a ~25" square piece of ply. I now had my form.

I determined that I wanted a 3/4" x 3/4" hoop. I ripped 6 strips of 3/4" thick clear pine, 1/8" wide. For the outside band, the length was the circumference of the mold. I used SketchUp to determine this length from the 21" circle. I added 3/8" to the length I needed (and also the minimum length I needed for my initial board I was ripping) and cut it to length. I then tapered each end, with a belt sander, 3/8" back, down to a point, for an overlap point.

For the second of the 6 bands, I used to SketchUp again to determine the circumference of a 20 3/4" circle, (minus two thicknesses of 1/8"), added 3/8", and cut and tapered it. I kept reducing the circumference by 1/4" and adding 3/8" until I had all bands cut.

Then, the fun part. Glue up. What a mess. I knew it would be messy (I didn't want to skimp on the glue and have any voids), so I put some butcher paper under my mold and clamped it to my bench. An initial attempt at putting the first band in the mold told me I needed more hands than the 2 I had. Thus, the need for clamping the mold to the bench.

I heavily waxed the inside of the mold and also near the edges of the form on top and bottom.

I used 4 large spring clamps. My mold was designed so that my large spring clamps would be able to span the 2" width of the plywood form + the 3/4" final thickness of the hoop. I placed the first hoop in the mold after gluing each taper and the inside of the 1/8" band and clamped it. It didn't want to lay too flat (too circular), but I knew the subsequent bands would help with that. They did.

The second through fifth bands got glue on both sides and then fit into the mold. I rotated the taper ends so as to not have the tapers of adjacent bands too close. I would position the overlapping tapers so a spring clamp could be positioned right over it in my mold, therefore, the tapers ended up being at 12:00 O'clock, 3, 6 and 9, roughly, with about a 1 hour variation + or -, where two were near.

The final band only got glue on the outside and the taper. In she went. By now, I was fast. I used yellow glue, and it was a warm day, so I had to work fairly fast anyways. The glue on both sides of each joint helped with keeping things slippery.

After the 3rd or 4th band - don't remember - I started shooting my shortest pin nails around the inside face of the hoop to help with keeping it where I wanted.

As it was drying, when glue got rubbery, I used a putty knife to do the major excess glue removal. I let it dry for a day and then popped it out of the mold. I used a belt sander to clean up the glue and even up the bands on the flat edges, and hand sanded the outer and inner faces. My hoop is probably a bit shy of 3/4" tall, but it didn't matter for me. If it would have mattered, I would have used 7/8" pine to start.

In use, it is very sturdy and works perfect. It holds the 33 yard trash garbage fully open so I can dump the 53 gallon bag into it by myself.

Hope that helps. Todd

[Mike OMelia]

It does help. I'm attempting a smaller hoop. Lots of nice bar stools use these in their designs. Three per chair. I think I'm starting to get the idea.