Reaching the end of my ‘analysis’ on fabricating a couple of simple 1×6 VGF curved baseboards with a radius of about 14 inches, I’m leaning toward going to my local custom wood fabrication shop and having them make me the two pieces I need. I’m thinking I’ll cut my cost a bit by providing the clamping jig for them to use. They would ‘simply’ steam and then clamp it. Sounds inexpensive to me (the great rationalizer).
How’s my thinking? Any suggestions? Would buying and planing say 3 thick pieces (LOTS of waste) and then gluing/clamping myself be just as easy/effective and be cheaper? Planing a 3/4″ piece to 1/4″ seems like a huge waste.
Regardless I DO NOT regret doing my curved walls! I AND my wife love them (and she counts for a LOT).
Replies
The stuff I've steamed has been thinner, but it wasn't too hard. The tightest bend I've done was 5/16" cherry wrapped to a 2" radius.
Any old scrap ply will do for the box.
Just buy a brand new galvanized gas can with the flexible metal spout, and set it on a Coleman stove to make your steam generator.
Tip the box a bit so it will drain. Drill a hole to fit the spout at the upper end, and another at the bottom for condensation to drip out.
A few scraps of wood will keep your work raised, and allow the steam to get at all sides of it.
A metal strap about 1' longer than your wood, with blocks of wood screwed to it keeping it snug to the ends of your piece, will help a lot to prevent tension-tearing on the outside of the bend. Use SS, or add a protective layer to guard against rust.
Jamb a shim between one of the blocks and your piece to tighten it. That will make sure the strap is really working.
The thing is, when you bend, some of the wood is in compression, and some in tension. You want as much of the wood to be in compression as possible to avoid tension failure on the outside face.
Sounds like you've already got your mold built, but you'll get some springback, so it's best to make your mold at a tighter radius than your finished wall.
You'll probably be fine using the wall's radius, though. Strangely enough, you get MORE springback with a gentler radius! Yours is pretty tight.
Get some heavy leather gloves, have everything laid out, do a couple of dry runs to practice your moves, and work quickly after you pull the wood out of the box.
You've gotten this far; it'll be cool to be able to point to your base, and tell people what you did.
Go for it!
AitchKay
Wow that's some good stuff. So how do I determine how long to steam it? I'm using 3/4" VGF.
The Wood Bending Handbook (Woodcraft Supply) says 45 minutes per inch of thickness. I'd probably go for about an hour.There's a chart in that book that says 18" is the minimum radius for 1" (actual) Doug Fir, so you should be able to bend 3/4" stock to 14".That's with a support strap -- unsupported, the min. radius jumps to 33"!I've thought about a PVC rig, but I don't do enough steaming to make it worth it. So, while I keep the can around, I just cobble up a box when I need one -- who cares if it swells up or starts to delaminate?Once, I just needed a half-dozen trim strips, so I used a length of aluminum downspout! Maybe the worst material, since it's so conductive, but it worked, possibly because I only needed a tight bend at one end -- the rest was fairly gently curved. So I put those ends right by where the steam entered.Good luck!AitchKay
Not sure if this helps, but you can get 1/16" or 1/8" veneer strips from Certainlywood in many domestic species. Make a form to match the profile and glueup the strips. Veneer co's have the best stock and you can make it match very well since it is sold in sequence.
Just a thought.
Brad
And a good thought at that! If I can buy thin wood, I'd probably take that approach in a heartbeat. Certainly Wood? Who are they? Where do I find them? Feed me, dude!
They are a great veneer company to deal with in New York. Add a dot com to the name (all lowercase) and give them a call. Common veneers are 1/42" thick, but they stock a many veneers in 1/16" thickness and sometimes they will have 1/8" thick for door builders. Look under the speciality thickness section on their website. They dont always have everything listed on the site. I know they have 1/8" Cherry right now as I priced some out last week (it was $3.25/sqft). They roll up whatever you like and ship it via post. It will vary in width as does a log, but the domestic veneers I have ordered are between 12" to 20" wide and up to 12' long. They dont always respond to emails, so its best to give them a call. If you have any concern about springback after you remove the clamps you might want to use a Urea Formaldehyde Adhesive (Unibond 800 is one used by many veneer guys) as it is quite a bit more rigid and not quite as difficult to clean up should you end up with some squeeze out.
Brad
Wow, do you have a picture of that 2" radius bend? I knew wood could be manipulated but that is impressive!DC
I don't have pics -- it was twenty years ago or so, but the book says the limit for 1” thick cherry is a 2” radius. For 1” thick cherry!Now THAT’S impressive!AitchKay
Not so difficult to create a steam box. Here's an interesting site.
http://www.bayareawoodworkers.org/steambox/steambox.html
Just A Guy With A Hammer
Nice ... great rig for this. I'd have to make a much larger one as I'm doing 1x6 VGF and I suspect I'll do at least a 6 ft piece. Thinking out loud ... my 'chamber' would have to be made out of say 8" ID pipe, I think. These are low pressure/temperature systems. I wonder if there would there be any benefit to a higher pressure system (e.g. 15 psi).
Do you know how I might determine how long I would need to steam my piece? I mean are we talking seconds, minutes, hours, days?? I'v no idea really (and it shows).
Actuzlly I've bought all the parts but haven't had time to put it together.
http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=31161&cat=1,45866,45867&ap=1
Here's a free booklet from Lee Valley. My efforts will be to steam bend the rockers and crest rail of the rockers I started to build instead of using the thin strip -glue-up press method.
Just A Guy With A Hammer
What a great resource. Thanks for sharing it. I REALLY appreciate it!!
I had a client with a basement that had several 6" dia. steel supports. The concrete was acid washed but they didn't like the look of the poles. I talked them into faux painting the poles and letting me put a base around them to match the fancy base they were using.
What I did was glue segments of walnut around a waste core chucked it up on my lathe and turned them. I cut the turnings in half and bandsawed the interior radius out. Looked better than I'd hoped.
Your diameter, if I read right would be 28", might be to big to consider this idea but if ever you need a smaller diameter it might work.
Just A Guy With A Hammer
Edited 1/28/2009 11:25 pm by jagwah
Edited 1/28/2009 11:26 pm by jagwah
But sometimes it's the off the wall idea that triggers yet another idea, so it is ALL good stuff!
Edited 1/28/2009 12:27 am ET by ChiefWiggum
Edited 1/28/2009 12:27 am ET by ChiefWiggum
Are you painting? If so, you can take strips of 1/8" baltic birch ply, cut across the face grain, and clamp them around your form. They bend very easily, but are rigid once glued up like that, and no voids means it bends smoothly. If you don't have BBP, birch door skins can substitute.
I use a male form only and band clamps to get the curve. If you are making stain grade, you can make the under-form of BBP, then top it with just a veneer of your chosen wood. If you have a molded profile, however, you're going to have to layer lumber for at least that part.
This was bent around the "waist" on my dust collector...best use of a Grizzly DC so far! Five layers of BBP were glued up at once, followed by a veneer of solid wood in the second glue up. I lay the wood veneer strip in a warm tub of water first; depending on your diameter, it won't be that hard to bend. The wood in the photo is bubinga, harder'n heck.
I thought about plywood ... very doable IMO. It is stain grade work ... and will butt up against more baseboard. Not sure I'm willing to live w/ the exposed edge grain of the plywood.
I do have two other curved walls that will be paint grade and I'll likely do either 1/8 or 1/4" plywood layers bent and glued around a jig.
What type of glue do you use in your example? Carpenters or do you do e.g. the gorrilla glue?
Just thinking out loud here.
Would resawing the VGF to 5/16" lams and planing down to 1/4" make them pliable enough to glue and clamp to the form without steam bending?
My thought exactly, but I know my 14" BS can only resaw about 5" tall without a riser block, and getting one for a Rigid has been like finding chicken lips.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
I need to get one for my Delta too.
Then I will have to buy new blades.
I keep thinking a hunk of 3x4" steel tube and some end plates welded on could be bolted in the frame joint. From the looks of the aftermarkert ones , thats about all they are.
I think the blades then are 105" and that is even +/- depending on the wheel travel.Spheramid Enterprises Architectural Woodworks
Repairs, Remodeling, Restorations
They kill Prophets, for Profits.
I used TBII glue on that, as i recall, because it grabs faster and cures more quickly. I'm not sure of this, but it also seemed like it would make a stiffer glue-up, but i'm guessing. If you need a longer open time or are gluing up oily woods like teak or for outdoor use, use poly glue, but it's a damn mess in situations like that.You can cover the exposed, curved, plywood edge with sections of solid wood. I did that same with sections of wenge strips on the bottom edge of the bubinga table apron.
Could do it like the old days:
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94969.19
In the beginning there was Breaktime...
94969.1 Photo Gallery Table of Contents
"Think they used enough nails there, Butch?" ;-)
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Well now ya made me go back and look.
Looks like three large framers on the end for the studs then peppered the curve with smaller, probably to prevent splitting the thin veneer on the kerfs.
Been too long ago to recall what it looked like when removing trim on a Vicky that was being torn down for a parking lot.
Don't know what they were expecting to hit, maybe lath strips?
'A little putty, little paint...'
I would imagine some simple blocking in the wall or multiple studs would provide a good base for nailing. In my 14" radius wall, I have 5 studs from start through the finish of the curve of a 90 deg wall intersection ... which means studs about every 3-4 inches on the outside radius ... closer on the inside.
Yeah. That looks like something I'd do with an air nailer (where I, admittedly, tend to get carried away sometimes). But someone hand nailed that sucker but good.
Mike HennessyPittsburgh, PA
Steam bending would be the most expensive. You have to build to box and the clamping jig,
then account for spring-back.
Kerfing like that shown in one of the pics would be the least expensive but would show all the kerf cuts, unless there is a base cap.
Laminate bending is most likely your best choice. Least cost to have a shop resaw for you and you can clamp in place with little spring back.
If you want to save time, try these people. they ship and they are great!
http://www.aitwood.com/StoreFront.Asp?WoodType=POPLAR&CATID=10&Section=QTRCYL&wDesc=Quarter%20Cylinders%20(90%20degrees)
for the face, resaw on the table saw and glue to the curve. band clamps work and so does an additional curved piece. Lots of spring clamps will work if the veneer is thin. vacuum press works too, if you have access to the parts. vacuum pumps are easy to come by. i got 1 for sale 10cfm oiled rotory vein (cheapish) or come by and borrow mine here.
Curved molds are not hard to make and they are throw away.