and here's the finished product...

So here's the finished leaf. Close up you might see that there's mahogany and walnut pieces that make up the image. It looks kinda 3D doesn't it? Now if this were a real piece and not just a demo, it would get sanded a bunch til it's perfectly flat and smooth, but not so much that you sand through the wood ! and then applied to the surface of your new cabinet.

Last week we had some demos on steam bending and laminate bending. With laminate bending, you take several thin layers (1/8 - 1/4 ") and glue them one on top of the other. You would lay that on top of some form you want it to be molded to - say a curved form to make a chair leg or seat. Then you put that in a very large vacuum bag and seal it. When you start the compressor, it sucks the air out and creates enough pressure in there to make the laminates suck down onto the form and mold itself to it. Pretty fascinating and exciting. You let it dry for a long while and when you pull it out you have bent wood - legs or whatever.

The steam bending you would do with regular old boards that have preferably been air dried, as opposed to kiln dried. This here is a piece of cherry, 42'' long and 5'' high. I cut kerfs into it across the grain to help with the bending, as 90 degrees is a lot to ask of a board. I also shaved the outside area near the kerfs, to ease up the tension on the outside fibers. I had made a block form to bend this piece around but found my calculating was off, so it was of no use.

We rigged up a long skinny box: about 7 feet long, 8'' wide, 6'' tall that has been used for steaming for years. The box is fed steam by a turkey bath/basting pot with the lid soldered on. This pot is then fed water by a bucket with the hose attached to it. Naturally the gihugic propane tank is just outside the door. Anyway, you let the board steam for over an hour - we let it sit for almost two since cherry is really hard and finicky. Once you pull it out, you immediately start to bend it slowly but firmly. Well, mine cracked. Mostly right at the corners although one was crooked. So I think the kerf was not shaped quite right, nor was it deep enough and maybe not wide enough.

I tried again with ash this afternoon with no better luck. I might try it again tomorrow...or I might just try the veneering and move on...