#FINISHED PURPLE HEART WOOD HOW TO#

Also, your radius is very shallow, so you can expect a lot of spring back on the pieces. We found they would fracture during bending without soaking, but bent well after soaking. Kiln dried lumber is not the best for steam bending but was all that was available to us when we were bending up a run of chair backs. You can type 05F15.01 in the product search for a free download book. It is fortunate that occurs at about 212º which makes the steam a good heat source. It is not the water that makes it bend, it is the heat which softens the lignin between the cells. As for the water, I can't see any benefit to soaking. It is only about 20 pages long, but that is more than you are going to get from a forum. You can even find a free download in their book section. has everything you will need, and the most important thing is the little free book that comes with the straps. Thanks! I hadn't considered soaking the wood. We have found when steam bending kiln dried woods that, if you soak them in water overnight to get the moisture content up before steaming, it worked much better.

#FINISHED PURPLE HEART WOOD HOW TO#

Does anybody have any other ideas how to do this? Can anybody direct me to more information about bending purpleheart? My thoughts are that about 15lbs of pressure might inject the steam in deep enough to overcome the thickness of the material. My plan on this one is to use a wallpaper steamer.

I stuck a small piece of kiln dried red oak (1/8 X 3/4) into a PVC pipe, then put it over the end of a tea kettle. The finished material dimension will be about 3/4 x 3. The material I have available is already kiln dried. I need to bend some purpleheart around a 15 foot radius.

Finished purple heart wood