Steam Bending Plywood Or Sheet Bending

Watch how easy it is to bend a plywood to make a beautiful furniture.

Steam bending plywood or sheet bending. Building a steam box for bending wood only requires exterior grade plywood waterproof glue and an electric tea kettle. Well i tried to bend 6mm plywood around my buck as described in a previous thread and after steaming it for almost an hour got absolutely no where. Do not pressurize the steam chamber. Try gently bending the ends of the plywood to see if it straightens out or holds its curve.

Turn the plywood upside down so it s resting on the ends and push down on the center of the curve with your hand. If the curve doesn t hold re clamp the plywood to the mdf form. Plywood pre cut for kerf bending will be cut the full length of the sheet with the exception of only a small amount of plywood at each end. I bought my kettle from lee valley see source below.

Steam bending creates a strong dependable bend. It came with an aluminum pipe to direct steam into the box. 3 4 48 96 exterior plywood 8 1 1 4 flathead screws 1 2 dowel 48 long 3 gate hook 2 4 strap hinges 4 3 4 5 16 72 self adhesive rubber foam weather stripping. Cut a form using multiple layers of mdf until you reach the desired thickness for the bend.

Any electric kettle with a cylindrical spout for inserting a pipe or attaching a hose will do. Use your hands to test the bent plywood. As the bend follows the grain of the wood it eliminates the weakness issues of a band sawn curve. Pressurized steam is detrimental to successful wood bending and extremely dangerous.

It s helpful to know how either for making skateboard ramps or something bent. An easier option is to saturate all the layers of the plywood using warm wet towels prior to bending. Steam won t do anything good for you with plywood. Plywoods are not often made from species that respond to steam bending and their laminations prevent the compression you need to force to the inside of the curve when you steam bend.

Like share and subscribe dont forget to check out our website and get to know the late. You can use steam to soften plywood for bending but it isn t the best way to do it because it requires a steamer large enough to accommodate a plywood sheet which can be difficult to construct and expensive to buy. Just like all bending methods choose a knot free strip of plywood.