Does anyone know how to bend cedar shakes to conform to a curved roof. We have asteamer setup that weve used for regular cedar perfections but it does’nt seem to work with the shakes.(The perfections are maybe 3/8″ thick while the shakes we’re using are close to 3/4″ thick). Oh, and did I mention that the shakes are CCA treated?I steamed the shakes for about 2 hrs today and they barely bent. My boss and i would love some advice.
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Replies
I've never seen any bent shakes. 3/4" seems too thick too steam. I'm curious, too.
gl
The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers.
I've seen two or three articles on bending shingles in FHB over the years. My recollection is that all of them were using sawn shingles rather than shakes.
Bruce Hoadley's book Understanding Wood describes a process for bending wood with anhydrous ammonia. From the pictures it looks like it makes the wood floppy as rubber, but it's serious chemical industrial engineering, not something you'd want to set up in a customer's back yard.
Toolboy,
Depending upon how long your treated shingles have been sitting around, they may have a lot of moisture in them already, since treated lumber is not kiln-dried. Have you tried clamping them to a form while you steam them and tighting the clamps as they soften? The thickness should not be a problem, it's possible to quite thick wood (2" or more) if you do it slowly. But again, I'm talking about kiln-dried lumber. If you can't get it to bend, you might try sawing length-wise about half the depth of the shingle on the inside of the curve. A cut about every inch should get you a pretty decent curvature. Good luck!