Neo-Neanderthal

[rbdoby]

Bought John Alexander's DVD "Make a Chair From a Tree" and decided to give it a try. Split the billets out of a 30" red oak log. Yes I cheated guys, removed most of the excess wood from the billets with my band saw, then finished them up on the shaving horse with a drawknife. Sorry St. Roy.:swoon:

I'm to the point now where I need to dry the rungs and bend the back posts. The rungs had air dried down to about 14% mc but need to be 6% mc. Here's a picture of the solar kiln I made out of some shipping crates and plexiglas. It's insulated with 3/4" styrofoam with a grill thermometer. Drying area is about 9x9"x27". Drilled holes in the front below the glass and in the back near the top allow some air flow. Heats up to around 110°. In a week the rungs were below 6% mc.

Made this steamer from 4" PVC and wallpaper steamer. The wallpaper steamer works better than my last setup which was an old pressure cooker on a gas grill. It will steam for 1 hour between fillups. After 2 hours in the steamer the red oak bent easily. At the bend the oak is about 1" thick and 1 1/4" wide. Now I'm thinking about steam bending some rockers.

Rick Doby

 

[froglips]

Bandsaws are nothing to be ashamed of. Just replace the motor with a hand crank

Great work on the kiln!

Looking forward to more updates, sounds like you got the green wood bug!

Jim

 

[Splint Eastwood]

Brilliant on the Steamer! :eusa_clap:eusa_clap.

Couple questions:

-Any idea, on how hot, temp wise this thing gets?

-Doesn't the heat warp or melt the 4in PVC pipe?

-What other gadgets can be used to generate steam into pipe?

Thanks for sharing!

 

[rbdoby]

Brilliant on the Steamer! :eusa_clap:eusa_clap.

Couple questions:

-Any idea, on how hot, temp wise this thing gets?

-Doesn't the heat warp or melt the 4in PVC pipe?

-What other gadgets can be used to generate steam into pipe?

Thanks for sharing!

I'm guessing the temp in the steamer is about 200°. There is a small hole in the bottom of the pipe to allow water to drain out and pressure to escape.

The PVC does warp with the heat. The plug I used in the end is just barely screwed in because when the PVC gets hot it warps and binds the threads of the plug. I kept testing it as the steamer heated up to make sure I could take it out by hand.

The last time I tried steam bending I used an old pressure cooker and the burner on my gas grill. Removed the steam vent from the top of the pressure cooker, a piece of 3/8" plastic supply pipe just the hole and threaded into the pressure cooker lid. The other end of the pipe was placed in the end of the same PVC pipe I used for this steamer. I like the wall paper steamer a lot better.

Rick Doby

 

[Travis Porter]

I hope you got all that green wet wood out of your bandsaw as you will pay a penalty later if you didn't.

DAMHIKT.......:embaresse

The kiln you made seems on the small side. Is it going to be big enough for everything you need for the chair?

 

[rbdoby]

It's big enough to hold rungs for 3 chairs. Everything else only needs to air dry.

My bandsaw has good dust collection and the blade guides are ceramic.

 

[Mike Davis]

To generate steam you need at least 212°F so that steamer is probably just a little hotter than that.

PVC pipe starts to melt around 180°F so, yeah it's going to get soft at 212° but the steam condenses on the inside and cools the plastic somewhat so it would take a long time to melt.

Thicker pipe would hold up longer and some of the pipe is rated for hot water so it would do better.