FIRST BENDER

First bender? No, not what you think. I am stone cold sober as I write this. I just finished bending the bow & stern stems onto the stem forms for my new double paddle canoe. This is the first time I have done any wood bending. Each stem consists of three ¼” x ¾” pieces of Douglas Fir. Why did I choose Fir? I didn’t – it chose me. I was wandering through our homegrown equivalent of Home Depot (bigger & better than our local H.D.) when I came across a perfectly straight grained clear piece of Doug. Fir which I couldn’t resist.

Though I could build the boat without an inner stem, it seemed like it would be worth learning how to do it, so I have been following the various threads on steam bending with great interest. Almost ordered the Lee Valley electric steam kettle, but figured I could cobble together something with stuff on hand. However, I had to buy my wife a new tea kettle before she would let me use the old one. Built the steam box out of some cedar fence boards. Used a pvc stepdown connector from the kettle to the high temp hose and then to pvc hose connectors in the steam box. Filled the kettle with water, turned on the campstove and waited for the steam build up and get the box hot. Unfortunately, once it started to steam, the plastic on the kettle shrunk and went flying off and the fitting to the box popped out. Steam everywhere, except in the steambox. After a few choice words, I turned off the stove and went inside to sulk.

I remembered some discussions about soaking and boiling, some having to do with wet towels and/or hair dryers neither of which sounding too appealing. So, not wanting to admit defeat, I did a web search to see what I could find and came across an article by Pat Chapman of McFarland Lake Canoe Company (www.geocities.com/nwwoodencanoe/Nwtips.htm). So, I decided to try soaking/boiling before getting that electric kettle.

Totally misreading his instructions, I took a 4’ length of an old 2 ½” piece of black plastic pipe, plugged and sealed one end and waited for the sealant to dry overnight. The next morning, with my clamps all set up and ready to go, I filled my wife’s new tea kettle and heated it on the kitchen stove. It held just enough to fill the length of pipe. When the water boiled, I poured it into the pipe, put in a stack of three strips held together with strapping tape with a weight attached to sink the wood, and sat back and waited about twenty minutes. When I went back to get the wood, there was evidence on the kitchen floor that I had not plugged and sealed the pipe as well as I had thought. Decided to go ahead anyway, as not too much had leaked out, and ran the pipe out to where the forms were set up, dumped out the water and clamped one end of the stack to the form. Expecting failure, I was blown away by how easily the wood bent around the form as I added more clamps. It took about two or three minutes and it was all done. Went back and taped a couple of baggies around the “sealed” end of the pipe and repeated the process for the other stem. Nothing to do now except wait for the wood to dry and then glue up the two stacks.

Now for the question. What did I do wrong? I mean, the process was so fast and easy, and the results so good, I must have messed up somewhere, because, given the amount of space devoted to wood bending on this board, it should have been very difficult and it shouldn’t have turned out so well.

BTW, how long should I wait for the wood to dry?

Cheers,

Chris Luneski