Bending Help

[Paul B. Cresti]

Ok folks I need to get your collective knowledge here on a woodworking conundrum I have placed myself into. I am tring to install some bead molding I made around the inside of some face frames. I always seem to use curves but this time it is a little different. The two side units of this AV Center I am building is "topped" off with some eliptical curves. The problem is, the tighest curve, is between to parallel members about 18" wide. It is a gentle curve but my wood is cherry and the trim strip is 7/8" wide by 1/4" thick with a bead on its face. I do not have a steam box. I am trying to let the pieces sit in water over night and have also placed fine saw kerfs on the back, inside, side. I have done this before with poplar but the cherry is quite hard. I was also considering "boiling" the pieces in a pan in the oven. ANY IDEAS???

[Cecil Arnold]

Paul, two alternatives come to mind, bandsawing the curves out of wide stock, or cutting the stock to 1/8" and doing a glue laminate on a bending form before putting the bead (router table with featherboards) on the finished stock. I think the glueline would not show if you were careful. Failing this, boiling may work, but I've had problems with hardwoods (maple) using boiling.

[Bob Smalser]

A temporary steam box is simple enuf.

Use Home Depot styrofoam "pink board" and glue to make a long box, insure the bending stock is elevated off the bottom, place on sawhorses with one end elevated a tad and route a wallpaper steamer into the low end for about 30 minutes.

The alternative is soaking the stock for a few days and wrapping with boiling-hot rags for a gentle bend.

[Richard Wolf]

Get in your car, drive to Long Island and you can take my steam box home with you. I use it to bend chair parts and I just finished a set and don't have any planned for awhile so no rush to get it back either.

Richard

[Richard Wolf]

Okay, it's not worth driving to LI to get the steamer, even if your are welcome to use it, so I included some pictures of mine that you could build your own. The difficult part is finding the gas can, I had to get it on line. The burner is a turkey frier, fuel is a propane tank.

Richard

[Richard Wolf]

I for one used to believe that you could only steam green or air dired wood. That was when I was building alot of windsor chairs. I have moved to Shaker style chairs and use kiln dried wood and while the bends are not as dramatic it works fine. The steam set up I have works very well and produces large amounts of steam.
Note the bend in the chair backs which are kiln dried cherry.

Richard