: An important thing to understand about heat gun bending is that you must
: clamp and apply bending torque very close to the section to be bent. If
: you try to put a small bend in the long strip it won't work well if at
: all.

: Also your wood can't have any grain run out!

: Clamp the strip or put it in a vise so one section of the strip will be
: immobile at one end of the bend and hold the other section as close as
: possible to where the bend will stop. This will allow you to focus the
: heat and torque in the smallest area possible which will make the bending
: most effective.

: With only the section to be bent immobilized, apply torque. Then apply the
: heat moving the heat gun back and forth over the strip. When the strip
: reaches the right temperature you will feel the tension in the strip
: release and you can bend the strip more or stop an see if the desired bend
: has been achieved.

: You can bend more or apply heat to straighten a spot that was bent too far. I
: haven't found the curves needed for my biadarka tail shape are strip
: brakers. I have found that wood with any grain run out will break.

: Once you get the feel for it you should be able to bend the strip to any
: shape needed for a stripper. But it won't work if your strip has grain run
: out.

: Hop this helps.

: Rob

Rob,
I am using local fir and was carefully looking for the straight grain when selecting the planks. I like the bright colour and on top of that it is the cheapest wood around here. I also built the bob special with this wood. But I have to admit I never tried to steam fir before (just ash when building my bob special).

Thank you for your detailed explanation how to use the heat gun. I realize that there's a lot of improvement potential in the way I work (as an IT consultant/project manager, I use my fingers only to touch keyboards ;-)

I will again try with the heater to get more experience. If this fails, then I'll switch to red cedar (which is quite expensive here) or ash.

I will keep you posted.

Kind regards
Roger