Bending wide wood

[Dwight]

I'm making a ski and it will be 8" wide. The width will be 4 - 2" strips glued together. Should I glue it together first and then bend or bend each strip and then glue it together? I'm guessing I should bend each strip first, since the steaming process would weaken the glue joints.

Thanks Dwight

[Teamcasa]

Bending wood is not all that tricky. However, to get a reasonably accurate bend, you will need a form. Both the negative and positive form to sandwich the wood into. Depending on the complexity and radius of the form, the wood strips need to be thin (1/16" +-). After you have all of the strips ready, you need to glue and then clamp this wood sandwich into the form and let set. Do a Google search on "bent wood laminations" and you will see what I mean.

is a link to my last project that employed bent wood lamination.

Dave

[barry]

Building skis of edge-joined strips seems to me an invitation to major injury _real_soon_.

I'd suggest that you think, instead, in terms of laminations.

J

[Dwight]

Possibly, but that is what the industry does. If they do laminate it is at the bend and only 3 laminations 1/4" - 1/16" - 1/4".

Even skis that laminate have different wood grain pattern every two inches.

snipped-for-privacy@sme-> > I'm making a ski and it will be 8" wide. The width will be 4 - 2"

[Bruce Barnett]

But does the end-joined strips end in the same plane? I would think they overlap so the edge isn't in one fragile place.

[I fixed your top posting to make it easier to read]

[Dwight]

Did you steam bend our just lay the laminate to the form?

Thanks