In 05, Brian Nystrom and myself did a series of test bends at the Greenland Gathering in Mystic, CT, using both dry and presoaked wood.

We wrote an article on our findings in the QAJAQ newsletter.

Here's the link:

http://www.qajaqusa.org/QUSA/newsletter.html

Go to winter 05 issue and download it if you want. The short story is that it's not needed but can help with some trade-offs. Presoaking gave the wood more "memory" to want to spring back to straight vs. dry steaming. Soaked wood was easier to bend but would fissure more than the dry steam bends.
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