: Well you're using the moisture to prevent fire, not to cause the
: wood to bend, slightly different :)

: While the heat gun works great for local bending of fairly thin
: wood where it can heat all the way thru the wood and keep it hot
: while the bend is being done, on bigger bends and thicker stock
: you're much better off with a steam box. It will heat the whole
: piece and keeps it hot long enough to heat thicker stock all the
: way thru. General rule for steaming is an hour of steaming for
: each inch of thickness. Actually temperatures above wet steam
: will slow the bending process.

: Bill H.

How many boats am I going to build? What kinda question is that? Why, all of 'em, of course!

I rather like the look of the highly modified steamiron (where's the handle?), but with a flatbased plate attached, is there a tendency to indent the strip edge as you bend it? I would imagine a curved base would address that - not sure I can get that one done.

Are most using the variable temp heatguns, or the 'two-fers'? 1200 watt or 1500 watt? I haven't played with one, noticed in the reviews some folk felt that, even with identical specs, some were much more effective than others - but they weren't bending wood strips, instead using the heatguns for more mundane projects. It strikes me that if it is possible to scorch the wood a bit, I wouldn't have to worry about ebonizing it later.... one less step.

Thanks.