Kerf Bending Hardwood

And with some materials such as plywood and particleboard it may be the only way to bend them successfully.

Kerf bending hardwood. However it is very dependent on the type of wood the moisture content the relative humidity the width of the blade etc according to the west virginia blogger. For tips on using the lamination and kerf cutting methods to bend wood read on. I think kerf bending is mainly used for things like speaker boxes projects where they ll be covered up and the curve will be held in place by side supports rather than glue in the kerfs. As you might expect the solid woods that bend the best using steam or thin.

Seal the door and turn on the steam leaving the wood in the box for 1 hour for each inch of thickness. Kerf spacing calculator for bending wood this calculator finds the spacing of the cuts at entered dimensions so when the piece is bent the inside edges of each cut touch together to form the correct curve. The kerfs should be located on the inside of the curve you want to bend. You want grain consistency in the wood you pick.

You definitely want hardwood for kerf cut bending. While this method is not very strong it does allow for easy forming of wide or tall parts. Essentially by kerfing the part you are making it thinner so it can be flexed to follow a curve. There s another interesting way to bend plywood or solid wood around a very tight corner using a solid wood corner block and a single large kerf dado refer to photo on far right.

The kerf cutting method is another way to bend wood and is also known to be very effective. And here s how you do it. To make my garbage shield i had to bend the piece of wood you see at the bottom of my materials picture. Kerf bending is the process of cutting a number of slots into a piece of material that allow it to bend.

The one and only thing about it that worked was my first attempt bending a piece of wood. I wanted to see if i could avoid the bent lamination craze but in retrospect bent lamination makes way more sense for applications like this. This method requires strength in the wood and softwoods would splinter and fail. In addition to kerf spacing and depth the material you choose also affects how tight a radius you can bend and still get a smooth surface.

Most materials used in the shop can be kerf bent. Popular types of wood would be poplar maple ash european beech spruce or mahogany. Using the kerf cutting method. This uses almost the same technique as wood lamination but with a few minor differences.

This doesn t have to be solid stock either you can kerf whole sheets and bend entire panels. Using this method the thin outer face of the workpiece is the only part that actually bends around the corner.