I am installing maple base cap and I have to address a few curved walls – 2 inside curves and 1 outside curve. I’ve tried cutting material away from the backside by making lengthwise kerfs on a table saw.
Obviously this didn’t work. I can bend the piece against the curved walls but the ends want to lift. I need some technique points.
The caps are 1 1/2″ tall x 5/8″ (at thickest part of ogee).
Thanks for your help.
Randy
Replies
What's the radius of those curves? Does the cap lip over the top of the base?
Remodeling Contractor just outside the Glass City.
The radius is 11'8". The base board is luan and 1/4" cherry plywood (the flat walls are 1/2" cherry plywood). The base cap is rabbeted so it covers the top of the plywood.
Thanks
Randy, inside or outside curves we generally approach them the same way. Where
we change our approach to capping curved based depends on the radius of the turn.
I'm in the midst of a remodeling of my companies web site and I'm pretty sure
I have pictures that I can use to illustrate the whole procedure however I haven't
gotten to work on the part of the site yet. Maybe I'll switch gears and work
on that tomorrow so I might be able to help you out.
I'll tell you riight now one method we use is steam bending although I have
a quick and dirty set-up we invented for just the dimension size you are working
with. I'll photograph it tomorrow and post it here.
As for those different curve types I'll post a few pictures here so you can
maybe see what I mean by the approach having to be different. (click the images
to open larger views of the photos)
#1-Tight Radius Base & Cap ( cap moldiing is routed from solid stock in
a curve)
View Image
#2-Large Radius Base & Cap ( cap molding is steam bent)
View Image
Just so you know I have heard about contractors kerfing the back of a piece
the dimension you are describing but I have never seen it done successfully.
Like you say " I can bend the piece against the curved walls but the ends
want to lift". Usally it will torque twist and turn or even split when
done with that technique which is why we steam ours.
So Randy, what are you trying do? More like #2 I think correct? I can have
a picture of the steamer for you by tomorrow.
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""The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -George Bernard
Shaw"
Jerrald,
Thanks for your post. My walls are similar to the second photo- I've done a staircase and a curved wall in a powder room. The powder room is an inside 11'8" radius. The stairs have a similar outside radius but a much smaller inside radius. (Nothing like your first photo, though.)
After the wood is steamed, will it hold it's shape? I am looking forward to seeing your technique.
Thanks!!!
Randy
Yeah, I thought you were refering to a curve like photo#2 anyway but I thought
I'd check. I just got done for the day so I haven't taken that photo of the
steamer yet but I 'll go do that now.
"After the wood is steamed, will it hold it's shape?"
There a little bit of springback memory but for the most part yes. Although
my own experience has also indicated that different species have different bending
characteristics that take so trial and error getting used too but hey learning
all of this is what it's all about right?
What species are you using?
I'll be back later tonight.Forum hint:
Shift Click on Discussions to Open Them in
a New Window!
(It make them really easy to read just like the
old days)
""The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -George Bernard
Shaw"
Jerrald,
I'm using maple base caps. I don't know the lingo, but my caps have a more intricate profile than those in your photos. (I'm guessing that it doesn't matter.)
Thanks again.
Randy
Okay Randy, Here's the steam assembly (click for the full sized photo)
View Image
You see what I mean by quick and dirty (an inexpensive too). It just some galvanized
pipe and a few fitting.
What we do is the bottom horizontal section of the pipe sits on top of a two
burner portable Coleman Propane Stove and the the long section of pipe travels
up and is help in place by a Black & Decker WorkMate (instead of leaning
it against a lathe). You can divise any thing you want to clamp and hold in
it place or to heat the water chamber but the principles remain the same.
What we would do is take a piece of molding and drill a small hole in the end
of it to attach a small wire to, We would then drop the piece down into the
pile and hook the end of the wire over the opening in the pipe so we can retrieve
the piece. It take a lot of steam and a lot of time in the pipe for the piece
to get flexible and by a lot I mean it wa a lot more steam than I origionally
expected so you'll just have to practice it to see what it takes. Ialso know
the bigger the piece you want to bend the more steam and time it takes too so
in the case of the project in the photos above I know my guys improvised and
cut apart the full size molding and made into two smaller pieces the scotia
and quirk in the drawing below and then did the installing in two seperate levels.
They found it much fastrer and easier that way. You'll notice they stepped (off-set
& overlapped) the pieces slightly so there would be no gaps to giveaway
that it was really several pieces built up. The drawback to cutting apart the
one-piece 1-5/8 x 3/4 cap that we had was the saw kerf to cut a piece of scotia
free would waste the astragal piece it was cut free from and vice versa.That
ment we needed twice as much of it as if we did it as one solid cap. We had
a small 1-1/2 hp shaper on that project so making our own scotia and astragal
wasn't a big deal but it is something to think about and consider.
View Image
One of the other things we did in some places too was instead of kerfing the
back of the base was we used 2 layers 3/8 Flexible Ply (wacky board) and then
glued foil backed veener to the face as I drew above. The veneer was stepped
to provide "shelves" for the scotia and astragal to sit on or fasten
too. That was the oly way to make the sharp base curves as in Photo
#1 so we went ahead and tried it elsewhere too. Since there was a lot of
curved base to experiment on we also mixed and matched the two techniques in
places. For instance 3/8 Flex Ply with a 3/8 x 51/2 solid wood layer.
One other thing about the steam set-up we had. It was a preety portable set-up
and that's actually important because when you pull a piece out of the steamer
pipe it takes only a few second for it to stiffen up so it's not something you
can do in the garage and then run inside the house and install. If you can work
right next to where you are installing the piece you'll need to template the
turn and build a form to bend the steamed piece.
It's also better to do it with two people and it's esential with longer sections
( just add longer pipe to the steam assembly for longer sections). And while
we cap the short end of the assembly to force the steam up the long section
of pipe to help keep the steam in the pipe ato saturate the piece we just use
a towel so if the pressure does build up the steam can escape. You'll also need
gloves.
One other trick I found was for a few bends that weren't quite what I wanted
them to be I painted them with water and then heated them with a hot air gun
to help coax them in to place. That only worked on the smalled scotia and astragal
pieces and not a all on the larger full size cap and I think only because the
wood was white oak which has an open grain. Open grain woods like white oak
( sometime wants to splinter when bending), red oak (a pretty consistant bender)
and mahagonay bend esier and faster than closed grained woods like cherry and
I imagine maple like you're using ( I haven't bent any maple yet).
Good luck. Any other ideas?Forum hint:
Shift Click on Discussions to Open Them in
a New Window!
(It make them really easy to read just like the
old days)
""The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -George Bernard
Shaw"
Edited 8/29/2003 4:42:14 PM ET by Jerrald Hayes
Jerrald,
Thanks for your post, but the photo did not load. Can you try it again?
Thanks,
Randy
Sorry about that Randy, those photos are being called from own company website and for some reason it seems to be down today. I'll have to call and find out what's happened.
I'll load the photos as attachments that way they are on the Taunton server.
Forum hint:
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Open Them in a New Window!
""The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -George Bernard
Shaw"
Jerrald,
Thank you very much!!!
Looks like I'm going into the steamin' business.
Randy
You'll find after playing around with it like we did that there are a lot of
possibilites for other stuff you can do steaming. A while back on that Hands
on History show on the History Channel I saw what I think was a show on boat
building and they showed how really big pieces of timber (I mean really big)
were steamed and bent so I've thought hey that would be really koool to try
too so were always on the lookout for a project where we can try something bigger.
Way before we did that project we I had bought this book FWW
on Bending Wood and reading it was helpful in generating some ideas I had
before I thought up "The Quick and Dirty Steamer".
Also you should go up to the Main Fine Homebuilding site and use the search
to check the Whole Site ( not just FHB) for "Steam Bending" and see
what else they might have.
Forum hint:
Shift Click on Discussions to
Open Them in a New Window!
""The
reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
the unreasonable one persists in
trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore
all progress depends on the
unreasonable man." -George Bernard
Shaw"