Make JAW DROPPING Floating Shelves By Bending Wood! 

You can now buy the Floating Shelves here!! www.etsy.com/listing/1458833985/oval-floating-shelves-o-bent-wood

Next time you go to bend the material… have a template set up and fastened down, that you can clamp to. This will allow you to keep one hand free to hold your iron. BTW… drape a wet rag over your miter cut area and keep the iron over them as you bend.. keeps the wood from drying and infuses the grain with steam. I do this every day… I build cabinets for private jets.

Gorgeous! I’ve never seen anyone use that bit to do kerf bending, but it makes perfect sense. You need so much less wood fill than using a circular saw. I think maybe you could make it a little safer by just plunging one quarter inch of the router per pass and doing each kerf over 3 passes. I worry that the skinny CNC bit is more prone to break with high friction. Overall you’re a boss and I loved this video and subbed

I bought an 18 degree router bit to do this very thing. (5 cuts = 90 degrees) I decided I preferred an odd number of cuts because that allows me to use a cut as the center. I also did the math to figure out the bend radius in order to account for the gain in material length. Glad to see someone beat me to proof of concept!

Gotta say this is the first time I've seen someone attempt to do kerf bending on solid hardwood instead of plywood. Your solution is nothing short of brilliant, giving a nice clean and even result. The kerfs are nearly invisible, compared to the traditional methods, and if you wanted to, you could get rid of the remaining faceting inside and out with a bit of sanding. Nicely done and you've got a new subscriber. Thanks for sharing!

One suggestion to help with the cracking issue. Guitar builders have to deal with this a lot, as we bend wood all the time. One thing we frequently do is to use a piece of aluminum flashing that is bigger than the bend we are doing and hold that against the wood, supporting it for the bend. We are usually doing that against a hot pipe of some kind, but I don't see why it wouldn't work here, too. You would need to clamp the work piece to the bench, but then use the flashing against the outside part of the bend and use IT instead of just bending the wood by itself. It backs up the fibers in the wood and helps prevent cracking. I hope I explained that well enough to make sense. Nice project, it came out well. But definitely use Titebond I for light woods. In fact, I use it for almost everything. III has issues on some woods and in some situations. I is just about perfect unless you need waterproofing.

Excellent project, great result, and I love the fact that you show the potential mistakes to help viewers avoid disasters. Well done!

Great job, for some reason I can't stop thinking of those as a custom home surround sound system. I think it would loom really awesome and modern.

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I appreciate that you share your mistakes along the way. Hopefully it helps others from making the same mistakes. Keep up the good work.

Dude, I freaking love these! I also audibly gasped when I heard the walnut crack 😂. Glad they both turned out well.

Editing, pace, script, concept, execution: all top notch. Well done!

Dude, this turned out awesome!! Great story and love how the final project doesn't have those ugly gaps. Keep bending wood! (And making videos)

Fantastic idea. I would consider routing the edges with a rounding over bit too, but this looks great!

Wow, those floating shelves are truly mind-blowing! Can't wait to try bending wood like this at home 🌟

Great bend! You really did make a better kerf bend, and the shelf looks fantastic!

Amazing!!! I was sure that walnut was going to fail on you but you adjusted and made it work!!! Thanks for the video.

Hey this is a great method! Thanks for sharing. Nice shelves. I'm thinking they would also make a good speaker box project. 3:26 was perfectly timed!

You actually found a bit and did something I have thought of many times. Very cool bit and the results are stunning.

You did well with bending the wood. The idea of thinking outside the box applies here. Thank you for the video.

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"Please do not try this at home. Link in the description."

I think the pieces are Beautiful!! You have taken wood bending to the next level..

This looks incredible. Best kerf bends I’ve seen. You’ve changed the game!

Nice looking results! Thanks for sharing the technique, it's a big improvement over the table saw kerfs. I think saw kerf bending assumes you are going to veneer the face, this gives you the option to do it without have to cover up the ugly kerfs.

Awesome video and awesome results! As a luthier who deals with bending wood on the daily, I have some tips that might make things easier in the future. Main thing is heating the area you're bending, but keeping it saturated with water/steam. Instead of heating the wood directly with the iron, soak the wood, letting it sit for at least a few minutes, add a bit more water, then cover the surface with aluminum foil before using the iron. This will help keep the moisture from escaping. I'd try to add heat for at least a few minutes before bending. This will really soften the lignin and let the fibers slip past one another while bending. It's important to let the water soak and penetrate, and also not evaporate from the wood. It's not the water itself that matters, but its ability to transfer heat deeper into the wood. As soon as the water is gone, the heat is only superficial, so you want it to stay as deep in the wood as possible. Second tip is to use some sort of flexible metal to assist the bend on the outer side. Best material is thin shim stock/spring steel because it wont kink, but any thin and flexible metal like flashing will do. Just make sure it's always in contact with the area being bent. This supports the outer fibers, greatly reducing their ability to fray/split or otherwise come loose. Watch some violin/guitar side bending videos to get a good look at what I mean and it will make sense. Hope this helps! As soon as my new shop is done, I'll be making some of these. I was just sitting out there contemplating what kind of shelving I want to do. This video made the decision for me!

Great project, and I really appreciate your extremely dry humor!

Great technique and fantastic result! Thanks for sharing. Genius to use the iron steam feature, never thought about that before. Will be trying this technique as soon as my bit arrives. Awesome Job!!

- It's possible to make router bit experience less load by making partial depth straight kerfs with a table saw just to remove extra material. - You could use a wet rag to make steaming with an iron more efficient. - A single wrap of glass fiber cloth with epoxy on the outside can make it much stronger.

Dude! Awesome job. Thanks for the info!

Thank you! I've been thinking this should be experimented with for years and found nothing. One potential addition to make it safer, especially on deeper cuts, would be to use a different router bit or a table saw/miter saw/track saw set at the correct angle and cut twice to hog out most of the kerf, then the little carving bit to just finish off the very bottom for that nice sharp point to the kerf.

Very fun project! Great idea using a tapered bit 👏🏼

Good job man. I am very impressed. I'm going to pass this on to some people I used to work for when I was doing staircases sometimes they would put a bullnose Step at the very bottom of the staircase and would have to bend a solid piece of pine or Oak depending on the material of the riser. Thanks for sharing your project I think I'm going to make one of those shelves as well they lookfantastic very sharp but what about if you use a scarf joint instead of a butt joint. Just a suggestion. Keep up the good work man God bless

Really cool experiment with kerf bending. It paid off for sure. These shelves are unique and look awesome!

I love this technique. The router bit with the taper and the defined flat point at the end is fantastic.

I love it. I have a huge passion for woodworking and it’s not too often I come across a new trick I didn’t already know. But this is genius. Idk why I never thought about using a cone shaped router bit for Kerf cutting wood, it’s such a genius idea!

Great video! I enjoyed the technique.

That’s really impressive, man

Got a good chuckle after you gave very specific instructions on the first bit and then proceeded to throw it in the trash. Your work looks great also. Very clean and neat.

Such an innovative way to make floating shelves!👏 Love the idea of bending wood for a jaw-dropping result. Can't wait to try it out myself!

here from reddit, great video! the chamfer looks really nice, I bet a roundover would look amazing too

Pro: No gap. Cons: The narrower tapered kerf means a sharper bend that shows up on the outside. You can clearly see the edges produced. A wider gap means the wood will bend naturally and produce a smoother bend.

Wow, what a great idea and I've never seen it done this way! Subscribed!

I have made about a hundred mountain dulcimers, which requires careful bending of the instrument sides to fit into a form. My mentor started me out with soaking the sides in water and ironing while bending. It worked and I did this for over a year on dozens of instruments but I invariably ended up with water stains on the wood. On lighter color hardwoods it could be unsightly. For over a decade I have been using a bending iron and forms, no water, and I have found that to be highly preferable. You still need to be careful not to burn the wood, but you can skip the whole soaking step and water management and I rarely get cracks. I will try this out on a floating shelf in the next couple of months, it’s a lovely project. Thank you!

Why don't we have a set of dedicated kerf router bits with clear instructions on how to get whatever curve we want available to consumers yet? WHY AREN'T WE FUNDING THIS?! Kits like this should have been on the market years ago. It makes too much sense.

Nice result! I'm wondering what it would look like if you made straight cuts, then inserted a wedge strip into each one before bending. Seems like it would be easier to cut, and you might be able to do some interesting things using a different wood for the wedge.

Awesome 🤩 video I was just planning on making some for my sons room! Thanks 🙏

Another masterpiece. Great work!!! This came out awesome.

I have a couple questions - please forgive my ignorance: How deep are you making those cuts? Looks like you leave about 1/16th" of material to bend? How do you determine the number of cuts? Is it simply a math problem based on the angle (6.2 degrees taper / degrees of arc)? Or was it trial and error? I think both of those questions may be related - Deeper cuts = More bend? Other things I'm thinking - cuts wider apart or closer together? How does that change things? (I guess I SHOULD have paid more attention in Geometry)

This turned out really great. Nice job!

I’ve seen lots of different techniques and the best techniques include that router bit. I got a cat and im making cat shelves for her with this technique. Thanks for sharing.

Great technique, brilliant to make v-kerfs this way, and yes those are some great looking shelves. I plan to use this on for a detail on a "vintage" cabinet design I've been working on. You could calculate the number of cuts by dividing 180 (or whatever number of degrees for the angle you are trying to make) by the angle of your router bit - or the reverse, determine the angle of the router bit for the number of kerfs you want. With that 3.6 degree bit you would have to make 20 cuts in order to bend 180°. Alternatively to the router technique, set your saw to the required cut angle and cut from each side to make a v-kerf. It’s trickier and you’d need a rather precise jig to line up the cuts though. I will be trying this.

I agree, those floating shelves are awesome

Very cool, I can see this coming in handy in the future!

I think the subtle lines that the router bit add make it look better than if it was milled from one continuous piece

That looks amazing!! Great idea to use a tapered bit in a router for this. Definitely want to give it a try

Man, I’ve been a woodworker for over 25 years, and so I rarely see anything new. I’ve never seen anybody use a bit like that for this purpose, but it worked brilliantly! I’m definitely going to get one of those. Anyways, thanks for sharing! I really enjoyed your video, and so I have liked, subscribed, and hit the notification bell! Take care! ☮️&♥️ from an old fart in rural Oklahoma

sitting here in my living room, looking at my foredom dremel style tool as it hangs from the stand I made out of mirror polished stainless 1x3 tubing... it has a bend that was kerf bent. made it look like a snake, just for the hell of it. I like the way you have hidden the cuts. this looks way better than my tool stand.

fantastic, the Office cameo was tops, thanks for posting.

Those are baller. Simple, elegant. Great job!

Great work, from woodworking to the video!

Super nice job, I just tried some merging but with ply and a table saw so I have the obvious gaps. I will give this a go for sure. Thanks. Andy UK

Using the router for things it's not made to be used? Yup, I'll try this one for sure! 😊😊Great work! Very enjoyable video!

That is so cool... makes me want to pick up that bit and give it a try.

you caught me off guard several times and i love it lol! great content and nice idea!

Super cool and satisfying to watch. Great work 👍

Pretty cool idea. The shelves look good.

Awesome job Jesus! Everything turned out looking awesome

First time viewer; I really like that you share your mistakes. Thanks for sharing this.

Wow, looks amazing. 10/10

Got me with the office meme Great video, very detailed anf entertaining Definitely going to make something with this method

wow, nobody's going to believe it's all one piece... I didn't! Great Job!!!

Such good comments on bending wood here. You should do another video that makes use of all these good suggestions for a better, safer bending process and you'd have the definitive kerf bent wood video. ;-) Well done! This is the first kerf bent wood video I've watched that looks strong enough to consider using. I'm impressed.

I'm about to put up a shelving system with fourteen curved 90° bends, and I'd been apprehensive about using a kerf because of the gaps. This bit is making me reconsider the option.

Nice job Bro. And I like what you did with your small errors. Being a wood guy for decades. We all make those types of mistakes. And like in life, it is how you react to them that will determine if you succeed or fail. And you succeeded. Again, nice work and they look great.

The Brad nails joke was 10/10! You just got another subscriber here! 😂 Stay safe there with your family! 🖖😊

Simply spectacular! Seriously gorgeous!

Looks good, Jar. I like the mini router idea for the kerf.

Two words...frikkin' awesome!

It is a very nice craft to make a sound bar out of it. beautiful and well done

Your accent and voice is like the Hollywood actor Edward Norton. A very simple but beautiful shelf , a lot can be done with this type of bending .

Looks far better than the more common way! Well done!

Those are quite nice. Ill have to keep this in mind next time im thinking about some shelves.

very inspiring idea. thanks for sharing it, its very useful in my work. Greetings from Indonesia

Great work, this is amazing!

I had this literal thought while watching a video about a Lathe Hammer and drywall that included the same cuts and bending.

Love it, fan bloody tastic! I may just try this myself one day. Awesome, thanks for uploading

Brilliant! I came looking for walnut-level hardness wood bending tips, and finally found a method i can potentially do on my apartment porch with hand tools. That router profile isnt much different from a dove nail pin but narrower and more acute, i can likely accomplish that with titanic effort and a couple of hand saws, plus I've got multiple steam cleaners and an iron. I want to bend solid walnut for a William Tell GE C522G style stereo console but with sides that taper inwards towards the bottom slightly with curved corners and deeply chamfered front facing faces. Also pivoting speaker ends with a stretching fabric front face, backlighting on the front decor plate, a record player and an automated full home music distribution and amplification system, with an eye towards leaving room for a short throw laser projector system.

Bro, this is really nice. And I was cracking up!

Wow! That's awesome man! Ive watched so many "tips for woodworking" videos to which the creators should learn some tips on not wasting people's time. This tip was quite tiptacular!

Nice work on this one! Lots of views incoming

This is impressive. I can’t believe you made this happen

That’s pretty awesome! Your first bending video was good, but I like this concept for getting nice clean bends!

Well done! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!

Nice job, man. I like that you can see the kerf lines on the edge of the finished piece. Makes it look like real wood and not some manufactured piece with edge banding.

this is really cool, really!!! I thought you were an avatar who could do wood bending.

awesome work. loved the fix for the joint!

I'm dying to try this out. Thanks for the video I just subscribed to your channel keep the videos coming!

Hey Maker. Great tips. Thanks for sharing.🍁🍁👍👍

This is freaking genius!