Serves me right for setting myself up as some expert!

Cant be too careful with steam. Leather gloves to open the box and handle the wood.

Of course the SoF was the first time I had tried to bend thicker wood. Instrument makers bend very thin stuff mostly, but I did come to it with some idea of the difficulty. I like, thin and multi layers. It works well and looks OK too.

: Hi Brian,
: I've used the open flame water heating method before but with wet
: "steaming" ie. a pan of boiling water for bending coaming
: timbers. Kinda dodgy in the safett stakes. I haven't used it for steaming
: as I was losing too much heat between the boiler and steaming box.

: A Wagner wallpaper steamer is a cheap, effective way to do steaming for ribs
: and coamings. The hose is kept coiled unless I actually need the length to
: keep my garage free of clouds. The coil is rested on an old wool
: blanket to keep it off the ground, the hose is thermally shielded already
: but every little bit helps. My steaming 'box' is a length of heavy PVC
: piping,(which will flatten if unsupported) in a bed of dry sand. The sand
: keeps the heat in fairly well and supports the 'box' to minimise the
: mentioned flattening.
: A piece of squiggled wire keeps the timber off the bottom of the pipe.

: One interesting advantage of the wagner is that I can spot heat timber if
: needed. Wrap the area to be spot heated in cloth with the end of the steam
: hose in the wrap. A 'wet' version of a heat gun.

: Hope this helps,
: Mike Savage
: South West Cork