Steam bending reducing rot
 

It would be a by-product of steam bending but not generally usefull as
only some of the wood on a boat is steam bent. Unfortunately bacteria
spores are pretty heat resistent. For example, cooking your food kills
bacteria but only puts the spores into a dormant state for about 24 hours
which is long enough for you to digest and expell them (about 10 hours)
before they wake up and mulitply inside you and make you sick. Its the
same when boiling drinking water or treating it with chlorine. After you
put wood on a boat its still suceptable to airborne rot spores. The darned
things are everywhere.

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how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

Gregg Germain wrote in message ...
William R. Watt wrote:
: Brian Nystrom ) writes:

: When I've soaked wood, all it did was make is swell so it no longer fit
: where it was supposed to, such as in a mortise. Either that, or if it
: was trimmed to fit after steaming, it shrank as it dried and became
: loose. Soaking didn't seem to make any difference in the bend-ability of
: the wood.

: softwoods would have more of a tendancy to swell. TF Jones writes that a
: nice piece of 15-20 year old oak needs soaking before steam bending.

Well you usually would prefer to steambend oak that was freshly cut
down int eh forest because it's moisture content is high. The Vikings
(and others) used to take freshly riven oak stock and submerge them
in a bog to keep them wet until they were used. But there, they were
trying to retain moisture - not add it in.

I dont' see where soaking 20 year old oak is going to make much
difference.


: A 1"x1" piece of clear oak properly steamed can be tied in a knot. Not
: something I've ever tried.

Hav eyou ever SEEN this done? With what length of wood? How tight a
knot?

I bend white oak for boat ribs all the time and they never get that
flexible.



--- Gregg

My woodworking projects:


Replicas of 15th-19th century nautical navigational instruments:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/backstaffhome.html

Restoration of my 82 year old Herreshoff S-Boat sailboat:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/SBOATrestore.htm

Steambending FAQ with photos:

http://home.comcast.net/~saville/Steambend.htm



"Improvise, adapt, overcome."

Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Phone: (617) 496-1558

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I think some of the folks here are forgetting that it is the heat, not
the moisture that allows the cell walls to get soft. See Greg, I have
read your pages ;) Anyway, I think the steam helps in delivering that
heat in a even, manageable fashion. I have heard of folks bending
without steam, just heat but I have not tried..
Scotty... still with tail between legs...

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

Stephen Baker wrote:

Brian N says:


It strikes me as one
of those things that seems intuitively correct, but really doesn't help.



I dunno. Dad had (at the tme I last saw him soaking oak) bee nbuilding,
designing and restoring boats for some 30-odd years. I know he wasn't a type
"A" personality, so can't imagine him wasting time or effort on something that
wasn't necessary to produce the perfect product.
Sadly, he died in '83, so I can't ask him to find out. I'll see if I can track
down his last apprentice and see what she has to say.

I'd be curious to know if he ever did a comparison between soaking and
not. I haven't seen any definitive tests and am just working off my own
experience and that of others I know who've tried it both ways.

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

Backyard Renegade wrote:

I think some of the folks here are forgetting that it is the heat, not
the moisture that allows the cell walls to get soft. See Greg, I have
read your pages ;) Anyway, I think the steam helps in delivering that
heat in a even, manageable fashion.

You're absolutely correct on both counts.

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

William R. Watt wrote:

I'm sure
if wood only needed to be heated to bend then for centuries boatbuilders
would have been using dry ovens instead of more complicated steam boxes
for bending.

The advantage of steam is that it produces the proper degree of heat
repeatedly and reliably. It's by far the simplest way to do so, since no
thermostats or circulation fans are required. The heat retention of the
water vapor helps assure that the heat is evenly distributed in the box
and it transfers heat 25x faster to the wood than air does. You
certainly could use dry ovens, but on thick stock, you'd end up with a
very dry outside layer by the time the inside heated up enough to bend.

And natives would have left wood in the sun to warm up prior
to bending rather than soaking canoe ribs and planks without heat to make
them easier to bend.

No, because sunlight wouldn't produce nearly enough heat. You're making
some pretty illogical assumptions here.

Anybody who wants to try a comparsion can heat wood
in an oven or microwave dry or wet and test the difference. What we don't
have in this, and many discussions, is any experimental data. :(

Agreed. The closest I've come is to take pieces from the same plank,
soak some and not others, then bend them. I found no difference in
bending ability, but the tests were hardly scientific.

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

steveJ wrote:

Well Nick, I must admit that where I saw this was not on a boat.
Musical instrument makers have been doing this for centuries to bend the
sides of guitars and such. Though the wood was thin, I've seen a guitar
maker bend honduran mahogany using a two inch iron pipe that was set up
on a stand with a propane torch burning in the middle of the pipe.
water was sprayed on the surface of the wood to prevent burning. Worked
very well. I wonder if this concept/tool cold be used for larger pieces
for bending ribs on small boats. I see no reason why it wouldn't work
when making small ribs like for a kayak or something.

I suspect that it would be difficult to get even heating of a 1/4" thick
kayak rib, but it might be worth a try. However, steam bending is so
easy that I'm not sure if the experiment would be worth the effort.

Steam bending reducing rot
 

Gregg Germain wrote:

I've never heard of that directly. But there's this:

Using green wood is usually a bad idea in boatbuilding as it promotes
rot. Yet you prefer green wood when steambending.
But the steaming eliminated the tendency for the wood to rot due to
it's "greeness".

So in that sense, steaming helps to prevent rot.

What people forget is that the heat of steaming actually drives moisture
OUT of green wood. Perhaps that's part of the reason for increased rot
resistance?

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

Old Nick wrote:

On Sun, 07 Mar 2004 14:53:54 GMT, Brian Whatcott
vaguely proposed a theory
......and in reply I say!:

I picked up on this note. The tone was ugly. So I looked back on the
thread to see how Marcel had transgressed.
I didn't see it. So it looks kinda irrational.
Can someone explain please?

Easy. I get sick of people who come here and ask questions (and the
question was minimally asked) and then can't be bothered to show an
interest in the efrfort people put into replying.

That in no way justifies making unfounded assumptions and posting such
as ****y reply. How can you possibly know his intentions or actions? You
can't, but you spouted off anyway. That's a great way to make people
feel welcome, isn't it? It's not like you've been a big contributor to
this discussion, either.

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

"Marcel" wrote in message ...
The problem is how do you bend wood on a yet to built boat.
I am using wood 7mm thick and 50mm wide.

Hot steamy towels and a little patience...

how do you bend wood into the boat shape?
 

Brian Nystrom wrote in message ...
Backyard Renegade wrote:

I think some of the folks here are forgetting that it is the heat, not
the moisture that allows the cell walls to get soft. See Greg, I have
read your pages ;) Anyway, I think the steam helps in delivering that
heat in a even, manageable fashion.

You're absolutely correct on both counts.

Well of course I am, I'm actually pretty good when I keep on the
meds... kidding guys...