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

On Fri, 07 Dec 2007 02:04:33 GMT, "Don Dando"
wrote:

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?

Only a note that wood is usually softened with steam in order to bend
it. That way the wood doesn't absorb a lot of water. There are books.
There is this magazine, Wooden Boat, that is devoted to that kind of
thing. I do prefer aluminum myself, as a boat building material. It is
easy to drill and rivet, and doesn't need paint. Maybe antifouling
bottom paint, but it doesn't need to be protected from sea water.

Casady

On Dec 6, 9:04 pm, "Don Dando" wrote:
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

Clear mahogany can be bent nicely with steam. Be careful not to
oversteam or it will tear, under, it will split out. I trust you are
talking about real mahogany and not that crap they sell for decking.
Anyway, as to soaking first I suppose you can however, if you steam it
properly you should not have to. Any water that does soak into the
wood only serves to help move heat through the part, as heat is what
makes the wood cell walls soft, not moisture or steam. Steam just
serves to carry the heat as it were. Anyway, proper steam application
should make it so you don't need to presoak, at the same time, I see
no problem with it either, just extra steps...

I would try a test piece first, but 15 min per 1/4" is a good starting
point iirc, hopefully someone will correct me if I am wrong on that
one.

Later, good luck, post pics. I will see if I can dig up some pics of
my turkey frier steamer, I have several size steamboxes I can hook up
to it.

I have used castoff aluminium guttering to heat / steam wood. By
folding the ends up just so to retain the water and using two pieces,
one as a lid, sitting on a couple of camp stoves, I was able to boil
teak. Then I found out that teak does not benefit from steaming.
Still, the method was satisfactory in principal.

Terry K

On Dec 7, 8:23 am, Terry K wrote:
I have used castoff aluminium guttering to heat / steam wood. By
folding the ends up just so to retain the water and using two pieces,
one as a lid, sitting on a couple of camp stoves, I was able to boil
teak. Then I found out that teak does not benefit from steaming.
Still, the method was satisfactory in principal.

Terry K

I would imagine any of several problems with your setup made it fail,
not the wood...

On Dec 7, 8:23 am, Terry K wrote:
I have used castoff aluminium guttering to heat / steam wood. By
folding the ends up just so to retain the water and using two pieces,
one as a lid, sitting on a couple of camp stoves, I was able to boil
teak. Then I found out that teak does not benefit from steaming.
Still, the method was satisfactory in principal.

Terry K

Let me explain my last post. I do not think you method was
satisfactory in principal. Heat makes the wood cell walls soft so they
can be bent, but only once. Once the wall is heated soft, if the
temperature drops, even for a few seconds, it will harden, and once
that happens that's it, it will not resoften. Aluminum, with water, on
heating elements screams uneven heat to me. The water around the
elements will be a different temp than the surrounding water, aluminum
sheds heat so fast, there is probably no way to keep an even temp
throughout the box. As the different areas heat and cool, you lose the
ablility to get any benefit from the steam by the time you pull it
from the steam box. I could be wrong, but I do not think your method
was satisfactory in principal, Just my opinion. All of my steam boxes
are 3/4 inch wood panels. I drill a 1 inch hole in the end and put a
rag in to keep the steam box full and moving...

"Terry K" wrote in message
...
I have used castoff aluminium guttering to heat / steam wood. By
folding the ends up just so to retain the water and using two pieces,
one as a lid, sitting on a couple of camp stoves, I was able to boil
teak. Then I found out that teak does not benefit from steaming.
Still, the method was satisfactory in principal.

Terry K

Teak certainly benefits from steaming, if your purpose is to bend the teak.

I have steam bent teak for rails, frames, inwales gunwales etc. for my
lapstrake boats.

Most wood will take steam better if it is not kiln dried.

...Ken

On Fri, 7 Dec 2007 13:43:54 -0800 (PST),
wrote:

On Dec 7, 8:23 am, Terry K wrote:
I have used castoff aluminium guttering to heat / steam wood. By
folding the ends up just so to retain the water and using two pieces,
one as a lid, sitting on a couple of camp stoves, I was able to boil
teak. Then I found out that teak does not benefit from steaming.
Still, the method was satisfactory in principal.

Terry K

Let me explain my last post. I do not think you method was
satisfactory in principal. Heat makes the wood cell walls soft so they
can be bent, but only once. Once the wall is heated soft, if the
temperature drops, even for a few seconds, it will harden, and once
that happens that's it, it will not resoften. Aluminum, with water, on
heating elements screams uneven heat to me. The water around the
elements will be a different temp than the surrounding water, aluminum
sheds heat so fast, there is probably no way to keep an even temp
throughout the box. As the different areas heat and cool, you lose the
ablility to get any benefit from the steam by the time you pull it
from the steam box. I could be wrong, but I do not think your method
was satisfactory in principal, Just my opinion. All of my steam boxes
are 3/4 inch wood panels. I drill a 1 inch hole in the end and put a
rag in to keep the steam box full and moving...

I've used a plastic downspout set over an electric kettle with rags at
each end to bend ash and cherry. It worked very well and the downspout
was back on the house before wifey came home from work

"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