Bending Bubinga

[nugget]

Hi - I need some advise... never tried bending wood before and I need to bend some Bubinga to approx 20" radius, the piece is approx the size of an A3 sheet of paper and 4mm thick.

As this is a pretty mild bend will I get away with clamping one end on a jig and heating the wood with an Iron to slowly get it to bend ? would I need to soak the wood in water first? or do I need to make a steam box - which I dont really want to do as I've only got one piece to do and probably wont need to bend again...

Thanks
Dave

 

[jimi43]

Steam bending is probably the best.

Wood will bend or not depending on the grain layout...bend along the grain anyway.

I don't know about bending bubinga so it may or may not work....but a small tube to put it in on a few supports and feed it with one of those steam generators.

It will be very hot when you take it out and you need to ready a former to clamp it to so it can cool down. It should stay bent then.

Jim