Wicked Makers

Steam Bending and Other Fun Stuff

Added 2019-09-04 01:45:21 +0000 UTC

We delved into a new area of making this past weekend and it was a lot of fun: steam bending!

There’s a project coming up where we’re going to be making a super nice scarecrow from reclaimed wood. We want to give it some crooked and creepy wooden ribs and arms and we thought this could be a great time to start experimenting with bending wood with steam.

Steam bending works by putting a piece of wood into a steam chamber and filling it with steam, letting it soak for a while, then bending the wood under pressure (clamps) for a few hours. If all goes well it will stay in that shape when you remove the clamps. Kind of a simplified description but that’s basically it. 😄

Our tests started with a big 4” pvc pipe and a clothing steamer. We figured out a way to fill it and vent it and so on, and it actually worked! We had plenty of failures but also had some interesting successes, specifically with White Oak. We decided to film the build so that’ll be out later this month. Next we’ll continue experimenting until we’re confident it will work for our scarecrow.

Also got started on a couple other Halloween projects that we’re excited about, one of which is a really cool witches’ cauldron we’ve been excited to make for a couple seasons now.

Lots coming down the pipe! I’m going to try to write y’all some more frequent updates here on Patreon. Thanks as always for your support and let us know if there’s anything specific you’d like to hear about or ask.

Cheers, ~Jay 💀