DIY - KERF BENT PLYWOOD SHELF 

This one came out soooo good!

The release of concrete from the pvc pipes was super satisfying to watch. And those are a wonderful addition to an already awesome build. Kudos.

I admire your work, skill and especially your tenacity. Beautiful.

Thanks for showing all those techniques. Love the epoxy in the kref idea 💡

Wow, I'm impressed. Not just with the design and look of the shelves but also with your ingenuity and tenacity. Bravo.

i am so glad i found it in my recommended vids , thanks you tube ! And thank you Urban Shop Works for sharing this amazing project , well done !

Wow, that turned out amazing! I love the way the hexagons wrap around the shelf. You have an awesome eye for design Preston! 👍👍

This project is absolutely incredible!!!! The design you and Alex, created is just beautiful and so unique!❤

Firstly, fantastic job. This turned really nice. I will attempt to make one in my small shop. Stay safe and healthy. Blessings 🙏🏿

Nice functional art. I learned a few things about plywood Kirk cutting. The concrete "bolts" were a nice touch & the hexagons topped the fine art look.

A lot of work for a coat hanger. But as long as you enjoy this as a hobby I think this is great. Loved watching you complete your projects. Great Work and a good eye for the details which makes all the difference.

WOW! Amazing design and execution! Impressive work mate.

Everything about your design and execution is just stunning!

What a master piece... Classic work

that is one of the best builds i've seen recently! well done! also, love bevelish creations as well :)

I came here to learn about kerf bending plywood and learned so many other useful tips, thanks man!

Excellent effort and great result. I have loads of experience in one off boatbuilding and have a lot of experience in kerf bending all sorts of panels and the like, custom interiors etc. If you ever try this again let me help a little. Buy yourself a thin kerf blade. You will find more thinner kerfs are much easier to deal with, give you a much fairer curve, put way less stress on the piece and mean far few junked attempts.

A little late to the party here but wanted to compliment both the video quality and more importantly the project. I love the mixed media - plywood, epoxy, concrete all in a cool, funky piece that showcases your talents. Well done!

Amazing floating shelves, great work..I tried curve bending plywood too, I used polyurethene glue to fill the gaps.

When I saw you marking out the hexes I was muttering 'please recess, please recess' and then you switched to the router! aaaaaawwwweeeessssoooooommmmeee!

Heres couple of tips with story from my experiences. I built few 90degree turns on this type of construction and from that my suggestion is to choose your plywood thickness, divide that by different number and find much thinner plywood. In my case 18mm ply was divided by 5 giving 3.6mm so i went with 4mm ply. On glue up you can adjust little bit if you want it to be bit over size and perhaps sand it down if that 2mm hits your eye, or use separate veneer peaces to increase thickness or just clamp it bit less tightly to get near desired thickness. Then i made jig from scrap that was 100-110 degrees ie bit more than 90 degrees cause wood will try to return its normal position when you release it and same with glue up but not so much. I cut the peaces excess in mind to leave wiggle room, sank them in water for two days (plywood was Finnish baltic birch with mixed layers of pruse in between, about 1mm layer height and i had zero layer separation issues). First time putting in water i used hot water and kept moving them couple of times a day to let water between peaces to get them soaked and before taking them out i put in again hot water and let it cool down to almost room temperature before quickly shaking excess water off and using.. well ALL THE CLAMPS forced them little by little into form as stack starting from middle outwards on both directions and using clamps at the end to create pre-pressure. Then when peaces were holding around there i slip 18mm peace of ply on the ends as extra support and prevent clamp feet creating pits when ply around started to bend up while clamped area could not. I left them dry about 4 days, but near heat source it would been faster, but still longer the better. Removed clamps check to see witch were smoothest and best looking putting them on the top and bottom, where outer and inner most ply had some damage from clamping match that i had won. Next i modified the jig little bit to take roughly half of the extra angle off, glued and clamp them in place again. After drying two days to be extra sure moisture in the wood would not mess with glue strength i took it out. Then i took the top and upright peace of 18mm ply, marked 50mm apart lines and routed them into steps. I did this actually with saw, utility knife and chisels as it happens those ply layers just happen to work as ok'ish level guide (not perfect as i tend to use machinist tolerances or least try to achieve that, so in reality i end up with millimeter miss in most cases, two if unlucky) I did this in apartment buildings living room, so i only had hand tools, router and cordless drill, so i tried to keep noise down going with chisel route. I did same stepping to glued peaces on both sides and glued this on the 18mm peaces. There were some gaps due my fuck ups but i just fill them with scrap peaces and on my case whole edge got covered with birch strips to increase durability and look. This method is time consuming and takes effort if done with out proper tools, how ever i think its worth it due how little material was lost, how durable the jointing is and how nice the surface becomes if done right, but well made jig and even more clamps you think is needed. My jig was bit crooked, i didnt have enough clamps or my sawing, process of gluing everything and only then cutting extra off caused one corned end up bit crooked.. that no one else seem to notice ffs :D Worst thing to make something, you know ALL the little mistakes and your eye zooms to them right away. Secondly if you didnt know vibrate your concrete mix in mold to get out air bubbles. If there is any you can still fill them but if there is any inside those are causing part to be weaker than it should. For concrete anchors cheaper option would be to use simple threaded rod and just flat on end with hammer. Those anchors are bit more expensive and are not working as intended. But of course this is depending how much you value your time vs money. I rather make things my self and recycle stuff, than spend money For molds them selfs just take your toilet paper rolls, cut material off to fit the size and tape them. After pour you can cut the tape and unmold. Other option is to cut the PVC pipe from one side, use tape to seal it and in unmolding twist flathead screwdriver on the gap and you it pops open. Quick sanding, sealing and its ready, though thinking of weight there is better options like painted wood, metal or bone where threaded rod stays with tab of 2k glue and you can machine treads pretty easily. Just made coat hanger from moose horn ends like this. Hope this book helps someone :D Also def using that pattern inlay in future! Just need to make the jig.

Gorgeous

What a bad ass project! I have always wanted to try kerf bends in a project, I might just have to try something now. Thanks for the inspiration! Cheers!

I am a big fan about hexagons, an so i love your shelf. Great work!

Oh wow. This is a really nice use of epoxy. I usually hate epoxy projects, but this is very well-designed and tasteful. Great work.

What a masterpiece!

Thanks for the shoutout man! This came out amazing and your camera work is so on point!

This was a next level project! Great job!

Bonjour, un travail magnifique, vous êtes un artiste...félicitations.

Ourstanding, beatiful wood work.

I tend to agree with you...plywood is under rated! i love using it to build all kinds of stuff.

nice job - i did similar thing with a drawer which goes around a siphon in the bathroom what i dont like is the non continous ply layers at the bend - i ditched the idea and delaminated a piece of plywood by soaking it in water and laminated it togehter - looks way smoother this way :)

Great work and attention to detail!

Wow! a beautiful piece of art.

I was wondering how many tries it took to get those bends. Experience indeed! Looks great, well worth the effort.

I played this video very much. You are a real master, thank you, hello from Russia, I really love DIY. Happy New Year, health and happiness to you and your loved ones

Killer piece. Nicely done.

Awesome build. The way it all came together was great.

Outstanding idea and look.

SICK!

Woa that is amazing! Beautiful design!

Beautiful work, Preston!

Excelente trabalho. Parabéns 👍🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Thumbs up for your #experience comment. So true! Thanks for sharing your experience with us so we can learn too.

Great job, I’ve been playing with bending plywood too, just wondering how you got the corners of the hexagons to be sharp? I would expect the round bit to follow the template and round out the inside corners.

Beautiful work! 👍 👍

looks awesome... great job..

Dude, this is just stupid awesome. Looks fantastic

Really inspiring.

That is wicked cool! Cheers from NS :)

great design, execution, and video!

Probably more glad that you showed the mistakes! It's encouraging

Hi. Dude, awesome job. A joy to watch.

Great work! I was wondering, which work bench clamps you use at time marker 17 seconds? Thank you for your time.

Awesome project and a great video too. Nice work!

loved the design dude. and being willing to show your failures, so many hide it.

Thanks for sharing this video. Question regarding cutting the kerf? What if you used a router with a 15° taper rather than a straight cut? Beautiful presentation and preparation of hex cuts prior to adding black epoxy. Wishing you and your family safety as the pandemic continues to evolve in its correct wave. Cheers,

The shelf looks good... and amazing video

That is one awesome piece of work. So impressed with that I love it. 👍

Thats' stunning

I am so glad you made a feature from the kerf, i keep getting told in the UK to hide them. I am like WTF thats what makes the piece with maths and basically good fucking luck. Loving your work btw.

AWESOME vide. Thank you so much. Quick question...do you know if (after making the kerf cuts) can you can try heating the ply wood to make it easier to bend? Thanks again!!

Have you attempted steam bending individual sheets together, then laminating after they dry? Seems like that'd be the only way to "bend" plywood without using kerfs.

nice design... hope everything's ok with you and all your kove ones

How do you go about sourcing this higher quality plywood. Even the birch I can find at the stores i've been to are only 3 layer. I'd love a wood supply video

Great , good work !

I just got my price agreed on to a console unit with one S curved door. I’m excited and terrified to start the kerfbending process

Very cool!

Great video appreciate the quality

This just came up on my recommended list for the first time today. Love the design and the execution. At the 9:30 point of "Stabilizing the kerfs" did you have any problem with the epoxy completely penetrating the depths to completely fill the small triangular channels of the kerfs? Also, the final shots looks like the kerf fill epoxy might have been tinted, but the pour in the shots it didn't look like it. Was that darker tone imparted by you're finish? Some years back I heard definition of "Experience". It is "That, which at the time, you wish were happening to someone else". Thanks for the inspiration. Scott

Awesome ! I Love it! Questions; did you think of maybe steaming the plywood for the bend?

Nice work

like the touch with the router and template, adds some extra character to the build. Did you just use a trim bit with a bearing ontop?

Some good tips but kind of low on details like, how did you drill out the holes for those oddly shaped dowels (where did those even come from, did you make them, how)?

Looks beautiful. What epoxy did you use for the hexagon fill and pre-sealing?

Nice work!

Really nice.

I like your work buddy

if you put some relief cuts length ways about a inch apart it will bend even better Also what did you use to fill in the 180* curve? Apoxy?

Turned out great, awesome work! 😃👌🏻👍🏻👊🏻 .......👉🏻▶️👉🏻🔔

So what was the purpose of the concrete "hooks"?...I feel a missed opportunity here to use wooden dowels instead, shaped as hexagons. Great work for sure...how did you mount it on the wall?

This is so sick. Nice work man. You've got a new subscriber!

По дизайну нужно было сделать крючки шестигранными! Было б очень круто!

Good job bro

Amazing

This came out really well - quick question regards finishing, does the epoxy you used to seal get sanded off prior to finishing, or was the entire piece sealed with epoxy ?

This looks really slick. I'm surprised you've only got 6300 views!

Awesome build! What finished did you apply to the wood?

OMG this is amazing :) What filler/epoxy did you use to fill in the kerfs? Thanks!

What did you put inside the kerfs to stabilize them ?

Am I right that you used the scraper on the epoxy when it was only partially cured? How long did you wait after the pour? That came out really clean. Thanks!

If I may comment. The technical work is excellent. If it was made as a sculpture it turned out well. If on the other hand it was made to be used then I think it has fallen short on a couple of grounds. Firstly , horizontal, large diameter pegs will not hold even the lightest jacket. What jacket, shirt or pants has a loop big enough for those 1 1/2in. pegs?The pegs need to be set at an upward angle from the mounting. Look at any very old coathook. Small diameter and steeply angled upward. narrow in the shaft with a knob on the end. The pegs are also to close to the bottom of the shelf. Barely enough room for your fingers. Secondly , the rounded inside edge of the shelf prevents placing anything flat near the ends , which like oval tables, is a waste of usable space. Also the shelf is very shallow from top to bottom and from the video taken from a standing position,it seems, doesnt allow a view onto the back of the shelf.And the shelf space itself is out of scale to the thickness of the elements.Keep up the good work. Cheers

Mice work Preston, other than the obviously cool plywood work, the coat hangers look really good as well!

Damn, brotha!

Looks great, what type of plywood did you use?

Hey there! What did you use to fill the kerf gaps? Was that just a regular epoxy?

Крутая. Стильная вещь. Подписываюсь на канал. LIKE)))

Would a steaming kettle under the cuts work better? Just a thought mate.....

Dude! Long time no see. Great video. I didn’t know you in the Yukon. My brother-in-law lives there. He’s a ski coach

I never really comment on things ... But way cool, nice job