steam bending

Jan 16, 2018 19 Replies

at a medium scale furniture maker that did a lot of bending



the old guys did all the work by skill alone



in other words they had no formulas they just knew the right amount of moisture needed before they tried the bend



well these old craftsman were about to retire and so they hired new guys



the new guys had a hard time picking up that skill and decided to measure everything



thought the old guys might balk but they encouraged the new guys and were actually glad because they could retire sooner than they thought



the chair backs they make are very nice


Electric Comet on Tue, 16 Jan 2018

10:58:44 -0800 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

"Good judgment comes from experience" "Experience comes from bad judgment."

Or in this case: how many boards did they wreck learning what was the "right amount"?

"If it looks stupid , but it works - it isn't stupid."

What's the moisture content of the wood before steam bending? What's your drying process after? Someday I'd like to make a captain's chair.

"It's only temporary - unless it works."

A brief description can be found here -

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There is nothing so permanent as a temporary fix.

This is great information. Thanks!

rhetorical i know

but it is wood so they still have failures

just a reminder wood has no imperfections but only misuse or miscalculations or in other words incorrect expectations in its use

it depends but as you might guess that is a trade secret

Electric Comet on Wed, 17 Jan 2018

09:03:55 -0800 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Well, yes. There is that while bit of the difference between the apprentice, journeyman and the master. After a failure the apprentice says "I thought it would work." The journeyman says "That doesn't work." and the Master say "Oh yeah, that doesn't work."

Yep.

Wood has no imperfections? I've certainly come across a crack or two. I've also come across hidden internal stress, which caused havoc when it decided to relieve itself.

Wait for it...

EC is going to say:

user should have accounted for stresses

crack should have been prepared for

wood was perfect user wasn't

DerbyDad03 wrote in news:b36ccf58-9517-437f-8d6f- snipped-for-privacy@googlegroups.com:

I'm surprised that there are still some of you left that haven't killfiled him...

sentences have no imperfections but only misuse or miscalculations or in other words incorrect expectations of a keyboard

pot....kettle

His keyboard was fine (though missing caps and shift keys). His sentence was fine, too. His meaning sucked. i.e. he was wrong.

OK.

not that it matters if we agree because that is boring anyway

the master can still make mistakes because wood growth is pretty random although not completely because it has constraints but the master definitely becomes better at pattern recognition

that pattern recognition will be hard to quantify for this apprentice i mentioned and really can only come from experience

so if the apprentice only relies on quantifying by measuring weight or moisture content or any other metric besides visual scan backed by deep learning then the apprentice will never obtain master status

and the furniture company will get tired of too much scrap wood and then they will wonder why this one guy seems to have amazing success even though he did not even attend college but he knows wood

Electric Comet on Thu, 18 Jan 2018

09:10:02 -0800 typed in rec.woodworking the following:

Yep.

"Schooling should not be mistaken for Education". Too often that is thought of in terms of going to school or not. But it is equally "obvious" that you can send two people through the same program, and one will "get it" and the other won't. And by "get it" I don't mean that they are "buzzword compliant" - to use a phrase - that is the credentialed "schooled" person. By get it, they have integrated what they learned in Class 101 with what they covered in 202, and life experience, and, and, &c and usw. It is that "integration" which leads to an "educated" individual - be it book learning or practical skills. I'm reminded of the Texas expression "He's read a book". Which can be taken either way: he's read a book and _thinks_ he knows what he's doing OR he not only knows the practical of the job, but has read up on the theory. Be that cattle ranching, carpentry or cabinet work.

depends which part of texas but mostly it is the first translation

there is an old one that might not be related but could be

beware the man of one book

most agree that reading is a good thing but have to also take the nose out of the book and observe too

It is Pebcak problem. Those are hard to fix.

Though it doesn't fix the disease, the chronic symptoms can be fixed with a .

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