Cold Bend Hardwood

[Jon Bouton]

Hi All,
I went to a demonstration a couple of weeks ago of an artist who bends wood cold. She uses a product made by http://puretimber.com/ Boards are moist heated then compressed longitudinally. Boards come out ~10% shorter than when they were compressed. Shipped wrapped in plastic film. Cuts & carves like untreated wood. And it bends cold. It is stable after drying.
Does anyone have any experience with this?
I'm looking to replace one outside stem and quite frankly, this seems like it would make the process easier. No steam box to build, no HOT wood to handle and clamp in place, no short time to complete the bending before it cools too much. An outside stem doesn't really have a structural function. I think it just covers up a canvas seam, would be screwed pretty tightly to the 100 year-old inside stem, serves as a bumper and looks nice. Right?
The artist was Kristin Levier. A photo of one of her spoons from the Pure Timber website is attached. Is this cool or what?

 

[mccloud]

This is an interesting web site, and an interesting technique that I'd not heard of before. I've got a small project that I'd like to try doing a sharp bend with white oak, but these guys certainly don't give the compressed wood away! If I was doing a replacement of the stem on a canoe with the 'torpedo' profile, this compressed wood sounds like a good way to go. Tom McCloud

 

[Jon Bouton]

I have to check out the canoe more closely to be sure what the outside stem is made of. She's a later Rushton Inc. Indian Girl, but she was gussied up for a special buyer.
she certainly does not have the extreme recurve of a "torpedo".

Yes the compressed wood is pricey and going this route may be wimpy compared with steam bending, but I'm thinking about it.
Thanks, Tom, for your thoughts

 

[Steve Ambrose]

I just ordered a piece to play with. Will let you know how it goes.