How to bend
Oak Wood
Learning How To Bend Wood Using A Steam Cleaner | Woodworking
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hi everyone my name is Robin Lewis and
in this video I'm gonna be having a go
at steam bending so the first thing I
need is a steam box that's where the
wood goes into to get it up to
temperature and to make that box I'm
going to be using some of this behind
the reason I've put in so many screws
along this length is as I fill this with
steam this box is gonna want to walk and
twist like crazy the problem with that
is then the steam is going to escape and
you're not gonna be able to get the
temperature that you want you may be
thinking plywood would have been the
better option and I think it would have
but I had this pine left over from
another project and I figured with
enough screws I'd be able to get away
with it I drilled some holes through the
side of the box to slide some dowel rods
through and I could sit the piece of
wood that I was bending on top of this
that way I'm getting steamed to engulf
it more even more I screwed the back
panel in place and then started working
on the front panel this needed to open
and close I used some fairly cheap
window seal as a gasket and then
attached the front panel using a hinge
and a clasp the idea here is you want
the seal to be as tight as possible so
you have better control over the steam
but if it does leak a little bit it's
not the end of the world ultimately you
want the steam to flow through the box
from one into the other so it doesn't
need to be completely tight however if
there's too many gaps then it's not
going to be able to build up that warmth
like you want it to the next step is
going to be to get steam into the box
and you would normally use something
like a proper steamer or steam unit I
don't have one of those but I do have a
steam cleaner so what I'm gonna do is
drill a hole roughly the size of this
and then I should be able to slide this
in and the match's holds in place as the
steam is coming out
then I drilled a few holes to allow the
steam out what you don't want is the box
building up too much pressure
and then there was it okay so the steam
box is really to go I've just got to add
some steam and then we can get underway
with the first and hopefully last test
before getting onto the bending of the
chair you can see here I changed where
the steam enters the box this was just
to help it spread through a little more
evenly you also want to tilt your box up
so that the steam rises up through the
box and then all the excess water will
run back down through one of those holes
this is where having a thermometer helps
so much because you can see exactly when
your box reaches the magic one hundred
degrees Celsius
it's amazing how close to that hundred
mark
struggling it's really strength as it
gets one that's busy steaming I
apologize about the hiss let me talk to
you about the form that I'm going to be
using this is just a straight piece of
timber with two half circles so the idea
is gonna be to clamp it along this and
then curve it around all I'm doing in
this test is making sure that I can
curve this radius in the meantime we
just Pete 100 on this so it's drop back
down to 99 but just took a little bit of
time we're up to about 20 minutes now
and this did get up to 100 degrees
Celsius
okay here we go you want to be as quick
as you can with this process because as
soon as that wood leaves that high
temperature
the lignin is going to start solidifying
again okay let's go to plan B let's see
what I can do okay not work it stay
tuned
I've done a lot of research last night
and I think I may have found some
answers to the problems I was having
this is the timber that I've been using
absol now this is Tasmanian oak and
according to a very good document which
I'll link to this should be good for
bending so I'm not too worried about the
wood that I'm using but I think the
thickness might be where I'm falling
down this is six mil thickness which I
would have thought would have easily
bent but re-watching a lot of the videos
I see people going down to four even
three millimeters and then they have
success so that's the first thing I'm
going to try today I'm going to resource
some of this down to around three or
four millimeter and we'll try Ben bet
okay we're up to 90 degrees Newton
that's going in I'm gonna try and be a
little more precise with this one so get
it to a specific temperature keep it in
for a certain amount of time that kind
of things so that I know when I come to
do the actual project that I want to do
I figured out where that sweet spot is
while the words cooking I've been making
a new form as well I suspect the old
form that I had might have had a radius
that was too tight so I'm gonna try
going a bit bigger and then work my way
down to that so this is a fairly larger
radius and then I'll be able to camp the
the piece of wood on either side of this
something that really started to make
sense with this test is the amount of
pressure that you need to apply to get
the woods Bend it's not too quick it's
not too slow but you sort of start to
figure this out around this point
it went further than last time
Tiffany went further than awesome so I
do feel okay I'm making some progress
I'm headed running now for another half
an hour so I'm gonna pull it out in a
couple minutes and have another go so
I'm gonna try and be a bit quicker this
one
it's not happy
it's gonna go it's gonna go
I need more support on the outside
that's what I need to do next I'm
starting to think that the combination
of a wider radius and thinner strips
Tiffany working but the next thing I'm
gonna try is using a strap for the
outside of the timber the idea is as the
the wood is bent around the form this is
going to support those those fibers on
the outside so I'm just waiting for the
box that heat up again and then we'll
give it another go if you're wondering
this fabric came from a ratchet strap
set a better option would be to use some
kind of flexible steel but I didn't have
any of that this is what I had on hand
[Music]
okay there's still a small crack I don't
think I've done it perfectly but along
this top edge is look it looks like it's
held together so I'm going to leave this
this is cool down and see if it holds
its shape but either way progress is
definitely being made it's been about 12
hours and the lignin in this wood should
hopefully it dried in this time as you
can see I'm getting a bit of spring back
but it should be closer to its shape all
right I'm pretty happy with this got a
good of scrapping over here but that's
it really
and that's holding a check the thing
with it is though even though now it's
it's sprung back you can still push it
back in and it's relatively flexible on
that point this is a win um I thought it
was gonna be a lot more cracking in that
good morning everybody it is day three
and this piece of timber has been
sitting overnight submerged in water so
it's moisture content is up to 28
percent it's probably a bit too high you
really want it between 20 and 25 percent
but I want to see how this affects the
result
but that didn't make a huge amount of
difference I've still got another nice
big crack right there oh I guess it's me
I wonder if it's just gonna come down to
time and the steamer but that's cool I
think this crack is minimal enough that
I'm happy to proceed because as long as
one of my bends is correct on the actual
project then I'm gonna be happy because
that'll be the outside one and that'll
be covered it's the next day so this has
been sitting in the forum now for almost
24 hours this is the longest I've kept
it in the forum for the other one I
brought out a lot sooner it's
interesting I've left this one in the
forum for a lot longer and I'm getting a
lot less spring back in this previous
one you can see there it's a lot tighter
I've read that you're supposed to keep
it in the forum for at least 24 hours
and that's obviously why it just reduces
that amount of Spring Bank all right I'm
gonna leave this project here I'm
feeling pretty confident now that I
should be able to bend wood in the
actual project which will be in a later
video I've gone from this which was
probably a bit more breaking than
bending to this final Bend over here
which I'm really happy with a little bit
of sanding and I reckon there would be
good to go so just a couple of things if
you are thinking about doing this to
yourself just a couple of points that I
figured out along the way that you might
be interested in the first one is that
the one hour per inch of thickness rule
definitely a guideline I was steaming
this for an hour and that got me to
where I wanted and this is obviously a
lot less than one inch of thickness this
is four mil but that hour worked with
this particular species of wood so when
they talk about an hour of steaming per
per inch of thickness I think it's
really dependent on the wood but because
you're new and you're not sure how to do
that you've got no real idea of what is
and isn't going to work so my advice
just steam anything around this
thickness for an hour and start with
that as a baseline and then
from there you can either bring it back
or do it longer the other thing is that
I would HIGHLY highly recommend you go
for a wood that is easily and readily
available this Tasmanian oak or thick
ash is I can buy this from my local
big-box store so I've always got a
supply of it and you are going to make
multiple mistakes you are going to end
up with a pile of breaks so if you have
a type of wood that you can get
undermined and it's always the same type
of wood that's gonna work so much better
for those initial stages instead of
going for your exotic one-of-a-kind
piece of timber that you want to bend
and you're just gonna break it alright
well that was a was it was a journey I'm
gonna be using what I learned here to
make a chair and domination chair and
that'll be coming up in a future video
but I hope you got something out of this
if you haven't done bent lamination
before this is what you can expect so I
hope you've got a little bit of
information out of it my name is Robin
Lewis thank you very much for watching
if you enjoyed this video you know what
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Bell icon alright everyone take care and
I'll see you in the next video
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