"Don Dando" wrote in message
. net...
I made up a 10 ft length of 4" plastic pipe with the end cap cemented on
one
end, the other end is removable. I have put various species of wood in
it,
filling it with water and let it soak prior to bending the wood. It work
well.

I have not tried bending mahogany using this method. I need to bend two
pieces of 1 X 3/8ths mahogany for seat rails in a lap strake dinghy. Just
spent $38 on the mahogany right after trying to bend other pieces dry only
to break them.

Does anyone have an opinion?

Don Dando


My first question to you is what specie of mahogany are you trying to bend?
When we build the 17' runabout we needed to make the 1/2" African Mahogany
planks more supple where we had to roll around the barrelback of the hull.
I used a 30Ga garbage can with a drain valve in the bottom to make it easier
to drain. I wrapped the can with some close cell neoprene for insulation
and cut a flap door in the top. we filled the can with 180 degree water,
placed the end we needed to bend into the water, wrapped a towel around two
feet above the can, wrapped plastic around that with the bottom of the
plastic tucked into the can so water would return to the can and used a
quart container to take hot water and pour it down the upper section of the
plank. All you need is about fifteen to twenty minutes in the soak. Have
all your clamps staged and ready. We used the towel to wrap the plank in
transit to the hull to maintain temperature as best as possible. After you
have clamped it in place use a heavy duty heat gun, such as you would use to
strip pain, and apply heat to both side of the plank for about ten minutes.
This not only dry the wood but helps set the bend/twist needed. We left the
boards clamped for twenty-four hours the sanded the inside to remove the
raised grain, completed the fitting of the plank and installed it. We also
used this method in a 4" PVC pipe to bend the shear clamp.

My experiance, hope this helps.

Tom