Jefferson Swivel and Secretary

Friday, April 8, 2011

Steam bending rig

 This is the Steam Box I have used for 8 or 9 years now. It's just a simple pine box screwed together about 6 foot long. I can hold almost everything I need to steam with this one box. The 5 gallon gas can was purchased new and has only been filled with water, the turkey cooker base is one purchased from Wal-Mart and few years ago. This setup puts out enough steam to get the entire box up to 212 degrees in about 20 minutes of so and depending on how much water I fill the can with will last from 45 mins- over 3 hours.


 My jigs for bending are simple construction lumber and a plywood base. I never had the room to have multiple jigs so I made one base and interchangeable forms. I can do Sack backs, comb backs, C-arms, and Bow backs just by unscrewing the form and putting the appropriate one in place. This way I only have one big clunky base to contend with and with just a couple of screws I can keep everything together when not in use. If I need to do several of the same chairs I bend 2 at a time and once bent I tie a string around them and wait till I have 2 more bent and clamp them all together to help keep them from moving around.


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