Steam bending Dowell Rod

[D.McDonnel "Mac"]

I am in the throes of designing this year's Christmas ornament and I thought about a Candy Cane. Could I take dowell rod and steam or boil it soft enough to make that tight of a bend? The most common species of wood available in dowell rod is oak, cherry, walnut, and some sort of unidentified white wood. Which would work best if at all?

Mac

[Jamie Buxton]

Red oak, cherry, and walnut steam-bend about the same. White oak is supposed to better than red oak, but "oak" without any more information is probably red oak. I'd avoid the mystery white wood. When I've seen dowels like that, they look like tropical woods -- no distinct annual growth rings. Some of the tropical woods (e.g. honduras mahogany, african mahogany) are much more difficult to steam bend than the domestic species.

[Jim Finn]

I have not tried bending a dowel but I find oak the easiest wood to bend. I have bent 1/8" oak by just soaking in water overnight then bending on a form.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Mac,

I once saw a piece of oak that had been steam-bent in a guys oven. It was approximately 3/4" x 3/4" by 8" .....tied in an overhand not.....I was amazed!

All I know is he claimed to have placed it on a pan of water in his oven......and eventually was able to bend it.

[Jim Becker]

The major issue with using dowels is that they are likely kiln dried and therefore, not going to be very amenable to bending. You kinda need green wood or at least air dried wood so that the lignum hasn't been altered by the drying process.

[Kevin Groenke]

What Jim said (as usual).

But.. you might try "hot pipe bending". This is a technique employed by instrument makers to shape the sides of guitar and other strings' bodies. This is usually done with thin stock, for it to work with a thicker dowel, you will have to somehow heat the dowel through.

Soak the wood, heat up a pipe, rub the dowel over the pipe until it bends. People who are good at this make it look easy, like Uri Geller bending a spoon with his mind. If seen Michael Fortune tie a stick in a knot utilizing this method.

http://www.pluckandsqueeze.com/Mac%20project/bending%20sides.htm
http://buildyourguitar.com/resources/tips/bending.htm
http://www.frets.com/FretsPages/Features/JT2000/JT2000Views/jt71.jpg

I think "white" dowels are often Birch.

-kg