Bending Iroko

[HowardM]

Hi,
What is Iroko like for bending.?
I am adding a cooker to the yacht, involving surgery to the existing Iroko/Mahogany furniture.
It would be nice to have bent fiddles as existing.
I have had a nightmare planning the stuff as the grain is up and down, all over the place.

If it is beyond a DIY job, it may be easier to just rout out some quadrants and stick them together.

thanks
Howard

 

[custard]

A few years ago I tried bending some non traditional timbers, I didn't try Iroko but I did try Teak. It was not a happy experiment and ever since I've stuck to the old faithfuls like Ash, Yew, and Oak.

But even more important than species is grain. It's been my very clear experience that any wild grained timbers simply will not steam bend successfully. So if you have some wild grained Iroko I really wouldn't consider steam bending as a solution.