Nautical Research Journal 363
5. T e garboard planks for two identical models. One pair was soaked in hot water for a couple of minutes, then hand formed and clamped to a wood plug carved to the hull’s shape. T ey dried overnight. T e other pair is shown before bending. T e wood is alder, 0.050-inch thick.
3) T ese tools generate fairly localized heat, so it probably takes longer to make bends. Wetting the wood when using these tools probably makes things go better but I seldom use dry heat. In some cases, wood can be soſt ened with a heat gun but beware of scorching it.
Hand forming with hot water
Of all the ways to bend wood this is what I fi nd myself using the most. If you soak a strip of wood in really hot tap water briefl y (usually no more than a couple of minutes—long soaks are not really needed for the thinner stock we typically use) you will fi nd that the lignin in your wood has been plasticized and the piece will be surprisingly fl exible. It can then be formed into roughly the shape you want by working it with your fi ngers. (Figure 4) Slow and gentle are the keys here; work along your piece, holding it between your thumbs and forefi ngers and bending it as you go along. I fi nd it best, usually, to not try to create all of a bend at once. Go over your part several times, bending it more as you go, and try to fi nish up by over-bending it a little beyond what you may actually need. It takes a while for the lignin in the wood to re-harden so your piece should remain fl exible for a surprisingly long time. If it begins to stiff en up before you are done, simply re-soak it in that hot tap water again. I fi nd it advisable to hand form planking this way and then clamp it on my model or building plug to fully cool and dry before bonding it in place. Wetting wood like this will cause the grain to raise and the part to swell slightly; I give a plank,
7. T e cabin side for a model of a hunting boat. T e wood is birch, 1/16-inch thick by about 1-1/4-inch wide, a substantial piece. Oversize, it was steam bent over the wooden form and leſt to dry overnight.
6. Ribs for a Whitehall rowboat aſt er steam bending. T ese are aspen, about 0.040-inch thick and 0.060-inch wide. Spring back was not a problem as the rib conformed nicely to the inside of the hull without much eff ort as it was sprung into place.
8. T e same cabin side, fi nished. Cutting openings for windows before bending would make it extremely hard to get the wood to curve evenly around the form. T e blank was over-wide to accommodate the hull’s sheer and allow the front of the part to stay vertical once it was in place on the model. T ese details need preplanning at the beginning of the process.
for example, a day to stabilize and shrink back to its original width before I take it off so I can fi nish sand it. Done this way there will be very little spring back. Once a piece of wood has assumed a specifi c curve it takes only a little eff ort to re-form that curve even if
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