My Windsor chairs attempt

[larry merlau]

no ken i spealt this one right it was to be CHEERS noyt chairs

[ken werner]

Well first of all, I'm going to digress just a bit and talk about steam bending. I have different set-ups for different purposes. Up until now, the longest items I steam bent were bent shaft canoe paddles. My steambox was 48" long. So today, I made an addition to the box, allowing it to accommodate the 60" long continuous arms. But first, I thought I'd show my little rig, which I use for steaming small things, like the hoops I make for my wife's baskets - she's been learning basket weaving, and I couldn't bear to see her buy the hoops when I could make them.


The steam source is just a little hot pot I bought at a garage sale for a couple of bucks. The steamer is a piece of 1.5" schedule 40 PVC pipe. I wove a little wire in the bottom of the pipe to keep the item from dropping into the water, and permitting the steam to go up.




OK, now that that's out of the way, here is the bending form, I'll use to put the double bends in the continuous arm.



Next are some of the blanks I rived from my white oak log some months ago. Using a combination of tools, bandsaw to get some rough shaping, then drawknife, spokeshaves, planes, and a bit more bandsawing, we go to the continuous arm, 60" long. You can see the decorative work I did using a simple shop made beading tool. You can see that the arm is wobbly, twisted, and generally goofy looking. I am expecting these variations to resolve when I steam it and put it on the bending form.


As for the big steamer, here is an image next to me for scale. Inside it are dowels to support the item to be steamed. Notice the hi-tech door latch, a rubberband. The outside of the box is bare, the inside is varnished. I use a garage sale hot plate, and a metal 1 gallon paint can for my steam source. It'll need to boil for about 1 hour, and this should do fine. The bottom of the steamer has a hole which mates well with the open paint can top.





So that's about it for today, more to come when I make some more progress.

[Vaughn McMillan]

...So that's about it for today, more to come when I make some more progress.

Looking forward to seeing it, Ken.

[larry merlau]

how much can you move that arm to get it right in the twist factor ken? havnt ever steamed any wood so dont know how flexible it gets..

[ken werner]

I'll let you know when I do Larry. I'm hoping I can get it right.

[Don Orr]

Awesome steam setup Ken! Looking forward to seeing the results.

[Rob Keeble]

Watching with great excitement Ken. Way to go.:thumbup:

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

[Bob Gibson]

Really interesting Ken

[ken werner]

The picture says it all.



Back to the shaving horse.....

[Don Baer]

hrrrrmp....