Steaming out a dent

ken werner

Member
Messages
3,377
Location
Central NY State
No, it isn't Car Talk.
I got the idea to do this from Bill Satko, who reminded me that it’s really easy to put a dent in soft secondary wood.

So imagine you’re proud of your new dovetails, until you see this nice dent on one, that happened as you banged them out, when a small chip was under the soft wood.


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The solution: steam out the dent.


Here’s the equipment needed – water, paper towel, and a household iron.

DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT use your honey’s iron for this. The way to get an iron is to offer to buy LOYL a new iron, and you get to keep the old one. Win, win.

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First spray a little water on the dent, maybe a teaspoon or so. Then place the paper towel, folded up over it, and saturate the towel with the sprayer.

Wait til your iron is hot, I use whatever the maximum setting is. [The OCD scientist in me had to put temp readings on the iron, but that is totally unnecessary.]

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Then, strike while the iron is hot. A nice ball of steam comes out with a hiss. Firm pressure is good.

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After as many repeats of this procedure as you need, you will have raised the dent above the surface of the wood.

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Let this dry out for a while. Maybe use a heat gun or the iron dry, or just wait, then plane smooth. The result should look like this.


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Practice on scrap before you tackle a real job. It's a great fix for a common problem. - With thanks to Tage Frid, who wrote about this in his book.
 
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