Wood Bending...

[Astriapo]

Hi all,

Can someone give me some pointers for bending wood?

I need to bend a 1x8 Maple around a 24.5 radius wall. I also would like to know how to bend a piece of wood to do casing around an arched area? These pieces are going to be stained.

Thanks so much.

Astria Po

[Rick Frazier]

Astria:

For something as thick as 1", I know of only two approaches that result in a decent looking face:

1) Cut grooves (across the curve, IE: perpendicular to the curve radius) in the back of the board, wet/steam the board and bend it over a form, then allow to dry.

2) make several laminations (resawing and planing to get 1/8 to 3/16" stock) then steam and glue up bent over a form. This will require making oversize laminations so you can trim down to 8" width and whatever length you need, but is much stronger and easier to do than 1) above...

I can't think of a decent way to bend a solid 1" maple board even with the

49" diameter you're dealing with...

Good Luck

--Rick

Astriapo wrote:

[Teamcasa]

"Astriapo"

24.5 Inches, Feet, Millimeters, Centimeters or Meters?

Arch size? Is the moulding on the inside or face or both?

Dave

[cselby]

I read an article about 25 yrs ago about bending wood frozen in amonia. In the article, the guy bend the wood like a pretzel by hand. I tried it out on a small piece of oak about 3/8x2x12" just like in the article. I used household amonia and a Tupperware plastic pan with air tight seal (this will show you wife that tupperware has may uses). As it was Spring, I put the container with amonia and the oak soaking in it, all in the freezer. (this will really impress you wife) Two days later I pulled it out, opened the container inside the house, gagged for a while (impessed my wife some more), took it outside, wrapped my face with a wet rag, and with welding gloves on, I bent the oak strip in two. Some of the color in the oak was gone, the liquid looked like oak water, meaning I left in the solution too long. The water content in the household amonia was probably too high as well, although it didn't freeze.

I always thought that if I needed to do this to a longer heavier piece of lumber, I would build a temp vat with a lid and a heavy polyethene liner outside in a field. I would use it in the middle of a prairie winter at -30 below and use industrial strength amonia. My form and clamps would be ready, I would be dressed to be there for 1/2 - 3/4 hr wearing heavy gloves and a respirator (Scott Airpac comes to mind) .

Anyone wanting to try this method should first buy some household amonia and take fast sniff. Then decide whether you will go ahead or get the stronger stuff. Get sloppy with amonia and it will kill you.

Pete

[Charlie Self]

Well, yeah. Ammonia is rough stuff, but...we don't got no prairie winters here. About once a decade or two it gets down below 10 degs. F. for a day or two.

In this case, we're SOL. Generally, though, having seen -30 in non-prairie winters in upstate NY, I prefer it as it is...about 70 ooutside right now.

[Astriapo]

Sorry 'bout that. It is going on the outside (face) of the circle, and it is in inches.

[Teamcasa]

"Astriapo"

Wood will not successfully bend into an arch. You will need to 1. cut it from several blanks and join them together then cut the arch out.

a link.