How To: C15a Wire-3 restoration

[Jordan Baker]

Finally after many weeks of trial and error I managed to successfully teach myself the art of steam bending oak. I want to try and make the hip ring spacer as close to the originals as possible. I ended up making it from 4 pieces of 1/4" thick strips laminated together. What a learning curve but Im glad I stuck with it.

For my steaming power I used my 1943 2 gallon petrol burner unit, 20lbs empty propane tank (full of water), some black pipe and a steam box made from 4" PVC pipe with end caps.

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The form was made up for the 24" inside diameter of the ring. This let me clamp and glue the wood strips as I built it up to the proper thickness.

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Here I have successfully curved and laminated two of the strips together. The ring is very strong and fit the hip ring very well.

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Lastly I cut the taper on the ring to fit the slope of the roof.

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Now it is just drilling all 16 holes and figuring out the lengths of all countersunk screws. I am extremely pleased about how well it ended up working. My plan is to paint on a few coats of POR letting it soak into the wood. This should seal the wood for life.