Steam Bending camphor laurel

[John Samuel]

Can anyone help me understand how good or bad camphor is for steam bending?

Bootle does not mention steam bending for camphor. I found precious little on the web, so here I am, asking for advice.

Thanks,

John

[elver]

Bloody awful. Grain runout means a nice big pile o kindling by the end of the day. Straight grain is critical. That is very rare in camphour.

[JDarvall]

As all timbers bend. I think it depends on how much of a bend your after. I've made camphor bend just enough for what I wanted once.

From my experience in some soft timbers, its not the runout thats the biggest problem, its its ability to compress evenly on the inside of the bend. ie. no compression failure. ie. visual compressed points on the inside of the bend. A compression failure in a soft timber can't be ignored.

[John Samuel]

Thanks guys,

I think my best bet is to build a steamer and test a couple of pieces.

The good news is that I have some nice straight grained camphor laurel on hand. What I am doing is putting a twist of about 25-30 degrees in a board that will be the sides of the back of a chair, to allow for the bend in the back rest. So it is not a severe bend.

I note on youtube that some blokes deliberately over-bend the wood a bit, then remove it from the former and put it in a frame that holds it in the finished shape as it dries. If that reduces spring-back, it sounds like a good idea.

All will be revealed in the fullness of time.

Cheerio!

John

[fletty]

Thanks guys,

I think my best bet is to build a steamer and test a couple of pieces.

Hi John, I've been trialling different timbers to steam bend over in the CHAIR DESIGN 101 thread so I threw in a couple of pieces of camphor laurel today to save you some grief!
In short...

• the cross section was 10 x 25 mm
• steamed for an hour
• bent in a fairly gentle double bend former
• 15 minutes in bending former before ....
• moved to drying former for an hour ... so far

20140614_132216.jpg


20140614_132153.jpg

Results

• bent easily
• no cracking on compression nor tension sides (but it IS a small section?)
• very pliable in the bend and I doubt twisting would be a problem

fletty

[John Samuel]

Hi John, I've been trialling different timbers to steam bend over in the CHAIR DESIGN 101 thread so I threw in a couple of pieces of camphor laurel today to save you some grief!
SNIP
Results

• bent easily
• no cracking on compression nor tension sides (but it IS a small section?)
• very pliable in the bend and I doubt twisting would be a problem

fletty

Thanks Fletty.

I am a couple of weeks off doing my test chair, but those results are encouraging.

Much appreciated!

John