Bending wood.

[Allan]

I have some ash which I will be fitting around the gunwales of my dingy. I would like to bend it first. I don't want to go to the lengths of building a steamer. Is there any way of just heating or wetting the wood when it is bent that would encourage it to stay bent when released?
Allan

 

[mersey]

I've used one of the Webasto's heating outlet's with sucess before.

Depends how thick, how much of a bend etc though..

 

[Allan]

I've used one of the Webasto's heating outlet's with sucess before.

Depends how thick, how much of a bend etc though..

The bend is a normal pram dingy shape. The wood is 45 X 8mm and 20 X 15mm.

Maybe a hot air gun would do the job?

Allan

 

[Tranona]

You won't need any help bending 8mm. 20*15 will be more of a challenge even bending 15mm - worse if you are doing 20mm. You can wrap it in towels and pour boiling water over then bend round a former. Ash bends well but is not very durable.

 

[Grajan]

Try soaking it in a trough of boiling water and using hand protection clothes / gloves ease it over a barrel or solid circular object professionals would use a "crook" to put shape into the timber.
the problem might be that you need shape and TWIST and that needs steam! roughly an hour for an inch of thickness. You can use a wallpaper steamer and a length of tube with end caps and if not using an internal rack turn the timber inside the tube a couple of times throughout the steaming process.
Best of luck!

 

[theoldsalt]

.............or laminate from thin strips that bend easily.

 

[Even Chance]

Agree with the wallpaper steamer and drainpipe method. Stuff rags in the ends to contain the heat. An hour or so will do the trick. Bend it farther than you need as it will relax a wee bit when it cools.

Good luck

 

[Scotty_Tradewind]

Ash and water? Not a good choice usually.
If you had seen the inside maststep supports on a previous boat of mine you will understand why.

Ash very quickly goes black and rots from the inside out if subjected to periods of being wet. It does need to breathe therefore to varnish or seal will be o.k. for a short period of time, but once the varnish or sealant is cracked or broken water ingress is quick and so is the deterioration of the ash.

It does however like to bend and is very forgiving to side grain stress and very strong when laminated up for internal building structures where strength and flexibilty can be expected..

Make some cricket stumps out of it, or even some croquet mallet shafts instead of using hickory...

 

[Amulet]

Ash and water? Not a good choice usually.

Exactly what I was about to say - it's a pretty unconventional timber for that purpose.

My tiller and my spreaders are ash, and I examine them for rot with suspicious eyes on a regular basis. Previous ash tiller snapped off due to rot inside the rudder head and I sailed up the beach - but that's another story.

 

[PuffTheMagicDragon]

No steam. This wale was laminated from 6mm material and glued (epoxy, because I had no recorcinol) in-situ:

To give an idea of the curve, the LOA of this dinghy is only 2,02m.

 

[Ruffles]

The gunwales on this dinghy are in two parts each I think around 15mm thick. They were part bent in sections by sliding the timber through a tupperware box fed by a wallpaper steamer. Didn't take very long. I reckon you could reduce that to 12mm and forget the steaming. By gluing together two halves you get great rigidity

It is quite a gradual curve though. Use timber that is at least 9" too long as it's hard to bend near the ends.