The Woodshop Shed

Steam box 3.0

Furnished content.
(from Lumberjocks.com)


I'm sure there are others here who thought, You know, maybe I should try my hand as steam bending”. So maybe a test of the water is called for and we get the budget Rockler steam generator, hose, and miscellaneous fittings along with instructions to build your steam box. Having helped steam and place timbers while working on older PNW fishing schooners I figured I could get a good grip on this smaller version. Well, there's a reason the title of this is what it is. To put it simply, using the supplied box building instructions I was able to get good results from the process but, after using it for its intended purpose the drying out process twisted the components of my 1st two boxes into shapes that frankly were a bit too artistic. So, like so many of us have done in the past and no doubt will in future, I went back to the drawing board. I went back to my boat building roots and followed the principles of hollow spar building. One side of each of the 8 parts gets the “bird mouth” joint while the other remains at 90 degrees. So, after some glue along with 6 stainless hose clamps it was ready for a test drive. After 6 uses now with months to dry in between I feel that this is the design that will stand the test of time. We'll see how long it is before the next trip back to the drawing board.

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