14
Steam bending would be your only option. Wetting the fibers and allowing them to bend and twist. It might not work, but there is a chance. Not using a moister measure, you will just split the wood where the stresses get to great.
On top of that, you will have to redry the wood back to where you need it and you will need to keep a lot of weight on it so ...
12
The other answers have covered how you can bend the wood, but one thing they left out relates to the length of the wood. The following applies to some other defects too like bows.
You mentioned you have 6ft boards, but you don't say what your final board length will be. If the length will be shorter than 6ft, then it would be advisable to cut them to ...
7
Bending using heat (usually steam) is one of the only ways to bend wood reliably. But, when a board twists as it dries that is usually not permanently fixable because the wood may have 'taken a set'. So while you could steam, bend back to perfectly flat and hold it there until it has cooled, and it may stay that way initially, it is likely to have a natural ...
6
The bending method pictured is called bent lamination. You take multiple thin sheets of wood and glue them together in a bending form, as illustrated in https://woodworking.stackexchange.com/a/1795/49.
Use single veneers. These are thin sheets of wood, often around 1/40"-1/8", though they can be thicker or thinner. Obviously the thinner the veneers, the ...
6
I suspect oak, ash, or some type of cedar.
I believe it will always have been ash.
European ash, Fraxinus excelsior, is one of the traditional coachbuilders' woods, valued for its strength and shock-absorbing properties as well as its ability to take bends well.
It's still used today for major structural elements in Morgans:
From what I understand ...
6
You can bend most woods, some easier than others, but even the easier ones to work with can fail. Oak is one of the more common wood to use when bending so I would recommend that. I would strongly advise against using pine or any non-hardwood though. You definitely don't want to restore a car with softwood.
There are three main methods for bending wood:
...
5
I have tried to straighten a wood screen door with steam with very little improvement. I then forceably bent it well past straight, 1 1/2 inches in center of the 7 foot span. Then saturated it with linseed oil and carefully heated the board with a propane torch.
It is holding it's shape after a week.
4
This can be done by using multiple thin pieces of wood, glued together between each layer and being clamped to a jig/template. The other way is to steam and again clamp to a jig/template. The jig will also have to take into account that once you clamp the pieces they may want to spring back a bit.
Keep in mind that consistency will be based on experience, ...
4
How long should I leave the wood clamped straight so that it wont bounce back right away (and finally fix my big crack of a mistake)?
If the wood is green, then you may be able to straighten it by clamping it to something straight and letting it dry in that configuration. How long it takes to dry will depend on the species, the diameter of the stick, the ...
3
I finally got the time to try this out today. Dry was hopeless, but damp worked well (as suggested by descriptions like this one).
I cut a couple of strips of the size I intend to use (22 mm wide by 600 mm long). The intended shape is just over a half-circle, radius 180 mm.
The first I tried to bend dry. I was planning to bend it part ...
3
Thanks for the drawing, I wouldn't have understood what you were hoping to do without it.
It's too thick to bend. (Isn't it? I've never tried steam bending before but remember I'm a homegamer)
It's not too thick to bend, but there are some it depends. Species matters, how the wood was originally dried matters, but the main thing is the orientation of ...
2
It is a well known solution in the wooden chair production. They are mostly using kiln dried wood at ~15% humidity. The steaming procedure recommendation is: 1hour for 1cm thickness under pressure of 1atm of 100% saturated steam. After bending the workpiece has to be dried and clamped in jigs in a drying chamber or in a high-frequency press.
2
That's a pretty substantial bend.
Steambending is probably not an option, especially if the wood has been kiln dried.
Doing a glue-up is theoretically strong enough, but a lot depends on stock preparation. If I did this, I'd want some mechanical assistance in there (screws, dowels, biscuits...), as it's a pretty substantial bend.
Buying new is certainly ...
2
With thicker blocks you could use PVA but don't, it's the wrong sort of adhesive for the application*. Whatever glue you pick must be completely waterproof — these are fairly thin end-grain blocks you're attaching, so will be extremely permeable to water (basically like sponges).
You could I suppose use mastic or construction adhesive but there are numerous ...
2
What you're describing is a medium sized solid wood panel that is likely to be "cupping".
This is a phenomenon that happens with solid wood boards/panels so the most practical solution for a beginner would probably be to use a different material - such as plywood or MDF. These engineered materials will be perfectly flat from the factory, and are ...
2
Well Ikea's bed slats are made by gluing, as you say:
https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/p/luroey-slatted-bed-base-60160217/
Materials: Layer glued slats:
Beech veneer, Birch veneer, Adhesive resin as coating
So they probably are a few layers of ply with some resin applied between, which are pressed into a form with heat which (partially?) cures the resin and sets ...
2
"Effectively"? No.
Theoretically it is possible to bend a piece of wood that has finish on it. However I seriously doubt that the finish would come through the process in an acceptable state. Typically you bend wood by immersing it in a steam bath to both saturate the fibers with water and heat the wood. I don't think a typical poly finish would survive ...
1
The heat gun works because it is localized. You would not bake the wood in a household oven as one piece, but rather apply heat to the places you want to relax so you can form it. Guitar makers use the same techique when bending sides.
For bending larger pieces, you would build or buy a specialized steam oven sized appropriately.
That being said, there are ...
1
The asked question:
The Sagulator is the generally accepted reference for determining if shelves are going to be strong enough to support the expected load over the desired span. Your table is nothing more than a very deep shelf, so lets take a look:
For your situation of
a 29" clear span (36" overall minus 2 @ 3.5" 2x4),
a 3/4" piece of Eastern White ...
1
I reached out to a friend-of-a-friend who does parquetry. He suggested applying heat with an iron to try smoothen the ends out. It was relatively successful in that the crack is no longer sticking up, however there is still a visible line where the crack is. I’m going to try fill/sand this and hope it doesn’t stand out too noticeably when polished.
1
What is ‘best’? Straightness and freedom from
knots have already been mentioned. Equally, if
not more important is the speed of growth of
the wood. The faster it is grown, the greater the
proportion of summer growth to winter growth.
It is the summer growth that is strong and that
will put up with being bent, while the winter
growth is relatively weak. Wood ...
1
I think the best way would be to make multiple of those "donuts" out of a thicker plywood, and use them as bulkheads down the length of the pipe. Run stringers to link them together, then bend a thinner plywood around and either glue, nail, screw or a combination to the bulkheads. Or, if you think you can pull it off, figure out how many 1x4's it will take ...
1
Flexible plywood can be used for this. It typically has a bend radius of about 12", so your 3' diameter should be fine. Do note that flexible plywood is usually pretty thin, so to get the 3" wall thickness you'd need two layers of plywood with some solid wood spacers between them.
You would need some kind of form to bend the plywood and to construct the ...
1
I don't think you will have a problem bending 3mm hardboard especially in the narrow binding strips. You will have better luck bending dry than wet as wet the board will swell and come apart. If you can use a ratchet strap to pull the strip down to the chest lid I think you will lessen your chances of cracking. Gluing will cause cracking less than nails or ...
1
Soak the sticks in water. This will make them pliable. Then put them in a brace or frame that holds them straight while they dry.
1
Little late but...I tought about how you straighten a door, using wood block on the 'to in' corner and close the door for a 36h, door is most time corrected. So, I put wood blocks under the two lowest corners, whem board lying flat on floor, then put heavy weight on middle on a high humidity day. Seems to work for now, will follow up.
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