Author Topic: Can you heat/steam bend dry wood?  (Read 5800 times)

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Offline Bryce

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Re: Can you heat/steam bend dry wood?
« Reply #15 on: October 20, 2015, 11:14:36 pm »
Just boil it or steam it and it'll take whatever shape you want. No need to take precautions to prevent any checking. Bc it won't happen, not with this wood.
I like to hit it with the heat gun after its completely cooled to 'set' the bend. Probably not necessary but I do it with all woods
Clatskanie, Oregon

Offline snowplow

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Re: Can you heat/steam bend dry wood?
« Reply #16 on: October 23, 2015, 03:43:46 pm »
Awesome info! Great note about being able to 'unbend' it easy! Thank you!

Offline Springbuck

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Re: Can you heat/steam bend dry wood?
« Reply #17 on: October 24, 2015, 12:18:36 pm »
  I do this all the time with maple and elm, esp. Practically every bow.  I would rig a form and just crank it over, cool and dry, slightly past the amount of correction you need, and go over the area you want bent with dry heat.  Simple and effective.  I will warn you to pay attention to what this does to the ROTATIONAL alignment, though.  Sometimes you line up the tips linearly and find that the recurves are now in slightly different planes.