Learn how to make wood magically bend to your will.
Bent wood lamination.
Max thickness of laminates veneers is 3mm.
After using an oscillating sander to clean up the inner curves and a disc sander to clean the outer curves trace your shape to another mdf board using your sanded shape and then rough cut the same shape only this time leave at least 1 16 of an inch between your cut and your pencil line.
If your radii is tight you can use 1 16 wisa italian bending plywood.
Actually there s no magic required.
Using clamps or a vacuum press and we will look at both methods.
So the first order of business is to build the form followed by cutting the wood into lamination strips.
Woodworkers use bent wood laminations for everything from chair rockers to drawer handles.
Just a saw some wood some glue and a few time tested techniques.
Bent lamination just introduces the element of curving the laminate.
Bent laminations do more than give your project a graceful look.
Lamination is different than veneering.
In veneering the layers are oriented in an alternating fashion while in laminating the layers are oriented in the same direction.
The process starts with ripping some thin strips of wood and applying glue to each strip.
The more seams you have the less chance for springback.
Once dry the resulting part will pretty much hold its shape forever.
Commercially made laminate layers are not widely available.
Bent lamination is a process of bending thin strips of wood using lots of glue and lots of clamps.
Lamination is the process of bending many thin parts together and holding them in the desired shape until the glue between them dries.
With glue between each lamination a press is used to bend the bundle of laminations around a form.
These sheets come in 4 x 8.
There are two basic ways to clamp the parts while the glue dries.
It s messy but rewarding to see a gracefully bent piece of wood emerge from a glue encrusted form.
Steps in laminating wood.
What you need to use for bent wood lamination is 1 8 bending poplar plywood that comes in either long or short grain.