Team Savoy

Since I am using maple for the edge of the curved desk, I have to curve the wood - something it doesn’t really want to do. I chose to use a steam box to actually bend the wood. It’s not the easiest way, but it will look awesome when it’s done. To accomplish this, I had to first build the steam box and start filling it with steam:

Then, I suspended the piece of maple inside the steam box to let steam circulate all around it.

Then, I just let it steep (cool, huh?)

at about 212 degrees…

After an hour or so, I took it out of the box:

and started bending it around the desk:

I added lots of clamps and used curved blocks to hold the banding in place:

Then, I just let it cool down overnight.

The next day I took the clamps off and voila! A curved piece of wood:

As with most bending processes, there was a little bit of “springback.” Springback is like wood memory. Since it doesn’t really want to curve, it tries to retaliate by bending back a little. I was a little dissapointed at how much springback there was. Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t matter too much in this case since I’m just going to reclamp this to the desk. Next step: glue this piece on…