Re: Bending wood

sir can you suggest a flexible glue? since im trying to bend a headphones headband I think it should be flexible. If im going to use the "cutting the wood in to thin pieces then gluing them together do i need a flexible glue? is elmers glue enough? thank you sir:confused:

elmer's glue will do. just give it a few days to cure.

normally when you bend laminated pieces of strips together its best that you make a mold that is in the shape of the final product. you just push the strips there, glued to together and let it cure for a few days (esp with today's weather, the humidity is too high). just line the mold with wax so the workpiece wont stick to the mold because of the squeeze out. if you pull it out from the mold too early the glue might move outward. actually you can use epoxy.

hope this helps.

Re: Bending wood

I use epoxy on all wood bending because of its great adhesive properties. It is also structural and stiff when it dries which means it will resist any tendency of the wood to unbend itself. As JBarot suggested, make a mold (jig). Have lots of clamps. With epoxy, you can generally unclamp in 24 hrs. Do read back my first few posts in this thread.

BTW, I recently bought a cheap heat gun. I plan to experiment with it on wood bending. The way it is used is to train the gun on the wood's concave side of the planned bend then bending when it becomes pliable. Still needs a jig but I assume it's less messy than the steam method and you keep your wood dry. Will post results when get around to experimenting.
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Re: Bending wood

sir's I'm almost finished with the project but I'm contemplating on laminating a thin sheet of stainless steel for added support. I used palo china for the project. I have two questions sir

1) I used 2-3 mm thin 3 pieces of palo china. is palo china flexible enough to act as a headphones headband?

2) If not is epoxy enough to use as the adhesive for the stainless steel and palo china? Thank you sir.

Thank you very much sir

Re: Bending wood

Despite the steaming, it was still tough to bend the wood. Here's the stem and the floor strips.

Here's the false-stem just glued. Under the polyethelene wraps is the stem which I used as a guide.

One lesson I learned from this process is that the wood shifts laterally from the clamp. Epoxy, when wet is a lubricant so the stips shifted and slid so I had to make sure I mallet them into place. Despite some tamping down, they shifted a bit so that edges are not completely aligned. In hindsight, I should've stuck some dowels.

Wow Balarila, as you say a tough learn, but seems like you came out with a ton of experience.
Wonder if a steel pipe could be coxed into use. Some sort of mesh 'bed', just to keep the wood out of the water, (but in the steam) ,some arrangement of pipes at one end to act as a condenser, and a means of boiling the water, (for as long as it takes.)
Thinking 'on my feet' maybe the 'pipe' could be rectangular in section so that a few pieces of wood could be steamed at the same time.

 

Re: Bending wood

I've seen plastic pipes used before from 200mm to 400mm diameter. I think plastic is better than steel so it doesn't get too hot to handle. A mesh bed's a good idea to keep the wood dry.