How to bend
Wood With Water
DIY How to Bend Wood The Easy Way No Steam Box Needed
Sharing buttons:
welcome to DIY easy crafts calm how to
bend wood the easy way without the use
of a steam box now bending wood is very
useful for many arts and crafts type
projects this particular process is good
for small pieces of wood
I used quarter-inch poplar the way you
start is to create a jig that's going to
have Europe the same curvature that you
want to end up with or slightly deeper I
cut mine out of a 4x4 and just basically
cut out the basic shape I use the
bandsaw but you could actually just use
a jig saw to cut out that shape and then
we're going to use clamps to hold the
wood into its form so instead of using a
steam box for small short pieces of wood
we're going to use a glass tray and
we're gonna soak the wood in hot water I
soaked it for about an hour and a half
we're then going to use the Holmes
microwave we're gonna start by covering
that glass tray with saran wrap this is
going to keep steam from escaping and
keep it against that wood so the wood
gets nice and hot and bendable or
pliable one important factor here is
that make sure you leave a little
opening in the saran wrap for some of
the steam to vent then this entire tray
goes right into the microwave don't
forget I started it out with hot water
and for this quarter-inch popular I
cooked the wood for about 10 minutes on
a high setting in my microwave once it's
done that water is very hot make sure
you wear gloves make sure you're very
careful and take the wood out and you
want to get it very quickly into that
wood form
now I find when bending wood it's
usually best to clamp one end of the
wood in place this way it doesn't slide
as you're bending it into the form and
then you can use a long clamp just to
start the bending process these clamps
each put out you know upwards of 200
pounds of pressure the whole time you're
doing this you want to listen very
carefully if you hear any cracking at
all then the wood is not soaked or
steamed long enough and you don't have
to clamp the wood all the way down to
the bottom of the form you can use the
same form for a variety of projects just
clamp it and to the desired curvature
that you want for the particular project
that you're working on
once it's clamped to the right shape you
have to set this aside for a day and let
it dry
you can do this either by putting it out
in the Sun or in the colder money
you
