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How to straighten a hickory stick

Started by RavioliKid, October 09, 2006, 08:19:05 PM

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RavioliKid

Hi, y'all!

This seems like a "general" sort of question. If not, could someone please direct me?

My father has a branch from our hickory tree that he has trimmed down to about a 1 inch diameter and is about 5 feet long. But, it has a bend in it.

He is shaking his brains, trying to figure out a way to straighten it. Any of you woodworking geniuses out there have any ideas?

eh eh
RavioliKid

Furby

Steam it and then clamp it to a straight edge.
They do steam bending, you want to do steam unbending! ;)

There are severl ways to steam it, but I'll let someone else tell ya how as the way I know isn't that easy.

pineywoods

Get yourself a piece of metal pipe longer and larger  than the hickory stick. Cap off one end. Put the stick in the pipe, hold the pipe somewhat vertical and pour in about a quart of water. Heat the sealed end of the pipe by whatever means available(blowtorch, wifes cookstove, charcoal grill, etc.) until all the water in the pipe boils away. Remove the hickory and clamp to something straight. Leave it clamped for several days. Same technique works for bending. Grandpa made walking canes that way.
1995 Wood Mizer LT 40, Liquid cooled kawasaki,homebuilt hydraulics. Homebuilt solar dry kiln.  Woodmaster 718 planner, Kubota M4700 with homemade forks and winch, stihl  028, 029, Ms390
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RavioliKid

Thanks!

I'll pass the suggestions along to him.

RavioliKid

moosehunter

I was helping my little sister and her then future husband build a bar in a resturant. We needed to bend a strip of oak molding around the bend in the bar.
My BIL put the ten foot strip of oak through the comercial dish washer (3 times if I remember correctly).
It worked! 8)
"And the days that I keep my gratitude
Higher than my expectations
Well, I have really good days".    Ray Wylie Hubbard

CHARLIE

Raviolikid, if your Dad tries to put that 5 foot long hickory stick into the dishwasher, please give us advanced notice. I think it would be worth the trip just to come and watch. :D

The pipe method sounds like it would work pretty good. I've never done any steam bending but have read about it in my woodworking books and magazines. Most I've seen are a long metal box made from tin where steam is piped in from and external source (pot on a stove), with an exit vent on the other end.

Back in the last century, 1968 to be exact, I was poorer than a church mouse. I decided to build my own guitar and purchased the book "Classic Guitar Construction" by Irving Sloane (printed 1966). While I never did build that guitar, I still enjoy reading the book. Here's how he suggest bending wood for the sides. He boils the wood in a trough. The trough is made from 24 guage galvanized tin and soldered with soft solder. The soft solder will hold as long as there is water in the trough when it is heated. You submerge the wood in boiling water (held underwater with weights (bricks?) or a clamp), set the trough on a heat source (maybe a Coleman stove). A sheet of tin over the trough will hasten the heating of the water. About 1½ to 2 hours of boiling should make the wood plastic enough to bend. Then clamp to a straightedge like a 2"X 4".  Just be careful and not burn yourself with the boiling water and use canvas gloves when handling the hot stick.

So there are several options to bending wood and all use moisture and heat.

Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

RavioliKid

When I got home this evening, I saw the famous stick clamped to the table by the back door.

Dad scavenged a length of gutter from the house next door that is having some work done. Somehow, he made it watertight, he put it on the burners of the stove covered with aluminum foil and boiled it "for about 20 minutes or a half hour".

We'll have to see how it turns out. It looks the way he wants it to look right now, but he says he's expecting some springback.

Thanks for the advice, y'all!
RavioliKid

Timburr

Raviolikid, your father can 'steam' his stick by any of the above methods.

Over here, we use a heated tub of moist sand for our steam bending methods....saves a lot of scalding.

When it comes to bending, the stick must bent ever so slightly past straight.  As it 'rests', the tension in the wood fibres will try to pull it again.  Should it be clamped to a straight edge, a small wad or packing is placed between the two, where the sharpest part of the bend was originally. For a 5' x 1" rod, I would guestimate a packing of 1/4 or 3/8" would do.

Your father can shake his brains no more, 'cos his stick will be as straight as a die!  8)

Oops!  A bit late.  You already have it under control!
Sense is not common

RavioliKid

Thanks, guys!

My father has been enjoying your responses. I wish I could get him on the computer himself - he's have a good time with you!

Maybe I'll be able to post a picture when he gets his walking stick finished.
RavioliKid

Brucer

Interestingly enough, you don't need the moisture -- just the heat. Steam is a convenient way (sometimes!) to apply the necessary heat without setting fire to anything. A traditional blacksmith passed this bit of information to me, and I've tried it a few times with great success.

Steam works better for thicker pieces of wood because it transfers heat more quickly (and you can go and do other stuff while you wait). For thin pieces of wood, a propane torch (handled carefully) works very well.
Bruce    LT40HDG28 bandsaw
"Complex problems have simple, easy to understand wrong answers."

RavioliKid

Thanks, Bruce!

I don't think I'll share that last bit of advice with him, though...I'd hate to see his handiwork turn into a mini-bonfire. ;)
RavioliKid

TW

This is too late but here are some thoughts just for the record.
I did some steambending when I tried to repair a wooden boat.

I agree with Timburr on the overbending.

Steaming time is about one hout per inch wood thickness for Finnish spruce and pine.

I have a homemade steam boiler and a wooden steambox that is made from tongue and groove boards. The pipe between them is about 15 cm (6") in diameter. The boiler does not have to stand pressure as a real steam boiler does. I made the boiler from a small oildrum inside a big one. Next time I will make it from thicker material bacause the inner boiler rusts too fast.


The oldtimers used rags soaked in hot water for bending planks and frames in boatbuilding. They split and hewed the first two strakes from twisted logs in irder to lessen the need for steaming. A plank could also be made more pliable by cutting in a crisscross pattern on the inside with the knife point.
When the archeologists find prehistoric boats with that crisscross pattern they explain that it was made to please the spirits and gods ;D I guess they are too highly educated to ask any old boatbuilder about the purpose.

tcsmpsi

Now, not everyone has one of these, I understand, but for 'stick' (bows mostly) bending/straightening, I use a hat steamer (emits a stream of steam) and work the piece to what I need.  Old longbows and recurves sometimes get tweaked and they can't really be 'clamped' back to where they are true. 
\\\"In the end, it is a moral question as to whether man applies what he has learned or not.\\\" - C. Jung

CHARLIE

Luthiers, use a heated metal pipe to bend the thin sides of a guitar to shape. They put the dry wood against the heated pipe and start bending the wood to shape.   But, they have to know what they are doing or they can cause the wood to break instead. It's faster than boiling, but ya gotta know what you're doing. Boiling is the safest method for not breaking the wood when bending.
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

Murf

I missed this one first time around.

An old feller on the road into mysummer place makes Windsor chairs and rockers, and bends sticks all the time.

He has a piece of ABS pipe a few feet longer than the sticks, one end has a 90° elbow that points down glued in place, the other end has a 90° elbow and a 1' piece of pipe pointed up, but not glued in place, just stuck on the end. The whole affair stands on legs like a sawhorse.

The end of the elbow that points down has a piece of canvas tarp tied around it hanging down. Under this tarp he places an electric kettle. All he does is load the sticks in, raised up slightly on some little blocks to allow steam to circulate all around them. Then he turns on the kettle, and slips the upward pointing foot of pipe on.

The steam is trapped by the canvas, but wants to rise and so the whole pipe becomes a chimney for the steam from the kettle.

It cost him a few bucks for pipe from the building center, and an old kettle from a yard sale.  ;D
If you're going to break a law..... make sure it's Murphy's Law.

RavioliKid

Thanks, guys!

Dad steamed it again today and has it overbent and clamped right now. We'll see how it turns out.

RavioliKid

CHARLIE

Or...................how it turns in.......... ::) :D
Charlie
"Everybody was gone when I arrived but I decided to stick around until I could figure out why I was there !"

junkyard

There are a lot of sugar makers in our neck of the woods. As they all need snow shoes many of them make there own. White ash strips are placed across the back pan. When time can be spared from fireing the arch and drawing off syrup they bend and clamp to the pattern boards. Later at odd times they string the shoes.
As with any thing the younger ones say "Gramp used to do that. Wished I had learned" but a few still do it the old way.
                      Junkyard
If it's free, It's for me. If for pay, leave it lay.

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