How to bend
Wood With Hot Water
Simple DIY steam box for steam bending wood at home
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they ever wanna welcome back to which
option keys in this video I am going to
try and get this piece of wood using
steam now this is something I haven't
done before to do it I need a steam box
which is essentially a enclosure in
which I would put my stock subjected to
steam allow the steam to penetrate the
width ie to loosen up the fibers and
place the the the navigable piece of
wood in a jig and allowed to cool off
and hopefully end up with a piece of
paint wood for whatever reason I would
need and would like I said I don't have
a steam box so I'm going to have to
improvise I'm going to use a piece of
200 more PVC pipe to save time capital
of snowboard caps use these pipe
fittings with flanges on them also
store-bought attached pipe and use the
steel drum to generate the steam by just
putting water in it and applying a heat
source so I'm going to get cracking on
assembling the steam steam box and
hopefully been some wood
okay so now to quote my pops it up I'm
going to blank off the one side with
this cap the other cap I drilled the
hole in I'm going to attach this flange
or pipe fitting there to attach my pipe
with the hose clamp to the lid that's
gonna go on the steel dome when it
touched the other one drill of all day
as well and then be able to transport
the steam from my steam generator to my
steam box
okay so the steam box is basically
finished except for a few minor details
I am at this stage going to put water
into the the new bucket and add the eat
sauce I'm going to use file but you can
use a hot plate or a gas burning
anything along those lines while they
would the water is heating up I'll be
adding some of the finishing touches and
going through that and then put in the
wooden 5/8
right
all the waters eating up there's only
two things left to do which is add data
to the cross section of the pipe to
allow me to put my stock on top of it so
the steam would reach right around the
the piece of wood and then add a drain
and oh I read the plug for the steam to
release well if they you don't have a
drain plug or a breather plug your steam
pressure could build up and cause the
paradox which is very important so you
need to add it a way to release the
pressure
okay so the water is just about to start
boiling so I'm ready to start closing up
and put in my piece of wood that I want
to try and bit
right
so this is the piece of wood I'm going
to try and Ben today are pre-soaked it
it's a soft wood so I've only added in
woods for a couple of hours one thing
that's important to note
try and use a piece of wood with the
grain running along the wood for the
most part and not grains exiting the
piece of wood because that becomes a
weak point when you bend the wood way
that the wood can break was split this
wood is about a inch thick and the
general rule is an hour of steaming on
an inch of wood this is soft wood so it
should be a bit quicker but we're gonna
leave it in for an hour and see see what
happens
okay so we are about 30 minutes into the
steaming process there's a good amount
of water building up inside the pipe
that gets released through the pressure
release hall and obviously also this
theme so the the hole is very very
important to ensure that the pipe does
not explode as steam can generate a good
amount of pressure okay great so my
small makeshift jig is finished I'm not
really bending the wood for anything
specific so I'm just going to try and
get a curve on it ideally I would want
to support the entire length of the the
wood I'm trying to paint by taking a
solid piece of wood and cutting the
curve I need from with a bandsaw but for
now this will do if I manage to bend the
wood and I'm happy with the result I
will design a project that requires
curved wood and post the video on that
but for now this will do I've got about
ten minutes left before I can take the
wood out of the tea box we'll put it in
the jig and see how it turns up
all right so we've got the piece of wood
clamped on object I'm just going to
leave it to cool down and then we can
take it out and hopefully it doesn't
spring back okay so I took the piece of
wood out of the jig after about an hour
and as you can see it is it spins and
it's staying bent there's no cracks or
anything like that on the wood I did
spring back a little bit when I took it
out should have I should have probably
left it in a bit longer but at least I
know my steam pipe works so I can now
get on designing a project or something
in which I wouldn't require curved wood
oh decent or proper jigs maybe try
sharper bends different profiles and
take it from there I'll post a video on
that if I do it and that's about it
if you have anything to add or have any
questions leave it in the comment
section below or if you like the video
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soon
