How to do Bent Lamination 

Thanks for posting, lots of great ideas. Many years ago I built a spiral stair, long before the internet and RU-vid. I bent the railing around the pickets on the stairs. Oak, about a quarter inch thick. Literally bought every clamp in town. Not nearly enough. Made a bunch of shackles out of short pieces of oak, front and back, and fastened them with pieces of All Thread rod. Worked really well, would work even better ndow with a deep well socket and a drill to drive it. That was in the early 70's and it's still there. Took me a while to figure out the railing is a straight board bent. I think the shackles would work better than the hand screws. Thanks again for posting, I feel something bent creeping up on me again.

Love this! I want to make a huge arch, so this “mold” with points of contact is far more efficient for what I’m looking to do. Very helpful ✌️

I used to do custom furniture. This is how I did my bullnose. The table was 2" thick with 4 inch 1/8. The bullnose was worked with a hand plane.

Aloha James, Let's Get Bent !!! I loved forming bends and making compound bends. In my 5 Koa Wood Rockers, I bend the Rockers rather than waste the wood of a larger piece of Koa. The strips of wood were first milled and prepared and thin sawed from a Band resaw, run through a wide belt sander to an equal thickness of about 3/32's, this way there was a much easier time bending and gluing the rocker's parts. PVA glues were never used since the wood would 'creep back or spring back slowly over time, away from the shape of the curve desired. The 'relaxed' curve was not something you ever wanted to happen to a chair that you were making and then sending through 'Fed-Ex' to some faraway place in the world. We were making and sending out 5 rocking-chair per week of Koa, from $3500-5000+ shipping. We never had a recall. Of my best reading on the subject of 'bentwood', constructions were 'Old Iron Sides'. It took 200 acres of New England White Oak to make a British Man-o-War. But 'OIS' was needed sooner and white oak was much too dear to make the whole ship out of, so they used 2 foot thick[total] layers of White Oak of the outside with 3 foot thick layers of Red Oak to the inside of 'OIS' to equal 5 foot thick of the Haul of 'OIS's' !!! White oak was waterproof, Red Oak is not but with the outside sealed with White Oak, they were able to form the cost-saving needed to make a better ship in quicker time as well.

great video, James! Bending wood is so common for boat building but this is a great lesson on the different methods and bonding techniques. WE always vote for EPOXY!

Good job James my boy

Thanks for the lesson teacher!

Thank you for sharing the great video walking through the process. I'm curious about how much spring-back to expect with the epoxy adhesive.

Hey James. Very nice build. I like that you're incorporating the bent lamination into it. I have experience in bent lamination because I've been building laminated wooden bows for about 10years. Overall I think you did an awesome job, but I would like to give some suggestions. First, I've tried every glue spreading contraption around, and by far the best for getting the proper amount of glue is a plastic knife. The serrations just naturally lay down a nice thin even layer, and the curve of the blade naturally spreads the glue from edge to edge. Plus they are extremely cheap and basically ubiquitous. Second, one thing you can do to prevent your outermost lamination from getting a gap is to use what I call a pressure strip. Basically a strip of flexible straight grained wood as wide as your laminations, at least as long as your laminations, and slightly thicker than your laminations (so it is stiffer which will distribute clamping force better). This pressure strip would go between your oak laminations and the strap, in your example. If you're using 1/4" oak lamination strips, the pressure strip could be 1/4" hickory (stiffer) or maybe 9/32" white oak. You get the idea. Cover the pressure strip with masking tape to help prevent marring the workpiece. You can also use a pressure strip on the inside of the curve between the form and the workpiece. Third, apply masking tape to the outside surface of your outermost and innermost lamination to prevent getting epoxy on it. Then lay down the plastic wrap, apply glue to all your laminations, wrap the plastic wrap around all of the laminations of your workpiece. Then put the pressure strips on either side so they are now outside the plastic wrap and won't get glued to your workpiece. When it comes off the form, the pressure strips fall away, most of the plastic wrap peels off, and you just clean up the squeeze out. Then remove the masking tape and your workpiece will be super clean. The pressure strips can be reused many many times, for the same or similar curvatures. Just make sure your pressure strips are very smooth on every face and relieve the corners to reduce the chance of them splitting. The pressure strips are not junk wood, they must be super straight grain, super clean. I hope that made some sense and hope you try some of those suggestions out.

That could be the best looking hammer on RU-vid. 👍👍

Thanks for sharing that

thank you James . yup looks sticky to me i am just too bent out of shape to respond now .

This is a highly bent viewpoint! I’m all out of shape over this topic. 🤣. Actually, great video and instructions as usual!!

Hi. I´m doing a project that requires "extreme" bending. The guys from West Systems ( my source of epoxy) recommend moderate pressure clamping as, going too far with pressure, can glue starve the joint. Did you experienced any starved delamination in your projects so far ?

How do you cut the wood into strips and prep it for laminating? Is there a link for the ratchet strap?

How many times can you say "holdfast" or "hold" in the first five minutes! 😂🤣❣️ About as many as clamps that a person needs! 😂❣️

Maybe I missed it, but is there a good way to estimate the amount of spring back when you release the clamps?

if you want to close the gaps does it matter where you start clamping. do you need to start at the end and work you way around. or do you need to start at the middle and work to the ends?

What about the construction adhesive options?

Was the frame for forming it made only with hand tools?

I may have missed it. Did you mention if it is air dried lumber?

People underestimate the plane

Is there a minimum number of laminates required to make the bend stick?

❣️

So when is the joergsprave collab coming?

When gluing bent laminations can you not use a water activated glue like Gorilla so that you can steam it or soak it in hot water so it bends easier?

Sorry...what was that word again? “Holdfast”? 😂

You bending that wood by hand is giving me anxiety.

"Can't glue wood when it's wet." I beg to differ.