On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 13:05:27 GMT, Brian Nystrom
wrote:


But I agree, it's
the heat, not the water that allows wood to bend. I've seen dry wood
bent with only heat. Water was used only to keep the wood from scorching.

I know people who've done a lot of dry bending, but I haven't tried it
myself. Compared to steaming, it's harder to achieve an even heat, with
scorching being a common result. I know of one guy who dry bent kiln
dried poplar! While he did manage to get it to bend, the bent parts were
terribly uneven quite charred on the outside. I think he must have been
seriously masochistic!

Luthiers normally dry bend over a heated pipe. A man I knew who
hotbent lute staves (about 1 mm thick) would put them outside
overnight if they got totally dessicated.

He never soaked anything, even though wood that thin might have wet
through. One reason was that he used curly maple. If he soaked that
after thinning it it would get all ripply. Violins often have curly
maple, so the same would apply.

On a separate but related matter, Flemish harpsichord makers of the
16th and 17th centuries hot-bent the curved bentside of their
instruments. These were made of limewood or European poplar (populus
spp) not tulip poplar as we have in the US.

This did char as they bent it. They scraped the charcoal off so they
could paint afterwards, which accounts for the side being thinner at
the point of sharpest curvature. As far as anyone knows, this practice
continued from circa 1500 to ca 1700. I don't believe they wasted any
time doing it.




Rodney Myrvaagnes J36 Gjo/a

Smoking in a bar is like peeing in a punchbowl.