HMMMMMM......

Did you have a "form" you were bending them around?

I used a piece of pipe that was similar to the curve I was shooting for and carefully pushed the rib around it, bending gradually and supporting the fragile bend with the palm of my hand. This seemed to help spread the curve over a larger area.

Like Travis mentioned, it sounds like you are steaming them about twice as long as I did although this shouldn't cause too much of a problem.

You may want to try slightly thinner ribs also, or at least thin them a little in the bend area with a block plane.

Hopefully some with experience using oak can chime in with other suggestions if you've already tried these.

Don't worry, you'll get your technique perfected on about the last rib.

Ben Staley

: Thanks Ben

: I forgot to mention that I had soaked the ribs for four and a half days prior
: to attempting to bend. The failures look more like the pictures of cold
: breaks but the ribs were coming out of the box to hot to handle without
: gloves.