: I am building a cabinet from mostly recycled 2x4 scrap picked up at
: a construction project, and ended up with a scrap about
: 3/32" thick that I tried bending last night.

If you can get it to bend, go for it. Since your material costs are zero, you aren't wasting much with a high rate of failures.

The 3/32 piece could have been better if you had a good mold to bend it around.

If you have problems bending 1/4" thick pieces, bend two 1/8" pieces and glue them together. The varied grain direction will make the laminated rib a bit stronger. The thinner stock will be easier to bend. The cost of materials is still low: free wood plus glue.

You could eliminate the steam completely by laminating cold-bent ribs made from 3 or 4 layers of very thing stock. Nice thing about this is that you can piece in shorter pieces in the inner laminations. You might even strengthen those laminated ribs by slipping a strip of glass fabric between the outer wood lamination and the next one in. Use epoxy for your glue. You'll appear to have a wide glue line, which will be nothing unusual. the outer surface will be all wood, so it will be easy to sand and finish. You can trim the edges to remove any overhanging glass fabric with a scraper, plane, sander, or knife.

Three layers of 1/16" wood with strips of glass cloth sandwiched and laminated between them would make ribs which are a little under 1/4". If you have a little resin and glass kicking around the shop, try it. Waiting for the resin to set so yo an get these out of the molds is slow and boring. Steam bending goes much faster. But do what you must to get the parts made.

PGJ