I have been in the process of making new inwales and stems for the D.B. Neal canoe. The 3/4 inch square ash stems were pretty straight forward and bent relatively easily with clamps and Steve Lapey's extra set of hands.
I wanted to try a new approach to the inwales and see if I could bend them all in one shot. I built a 20 foot long combination rail soaker and rail steamer out of PVC. I fired her up today.
I had mixed results. The open end didn't seem to get hot enough. I had a rag stuffed in there. The middle and far end of the tube seemed adequately hot. With a bit of finagling and perhaps leveling of this PVC system it may work yet, especially for cases when you are building a new canoe and clamping the inwale to the form. Maybe a heat source near each end would also assist.
When it came to bending, I was just too busy trying to clamp both ends of the rails to my inwale forms.
I did manage to bend one end (the hotter ends) of each inwale. I'll go back to my pine steam box tomorrow and do up the other ends. The PVC also seemed to lose heat quickly. Wood is a better insulator.
I'd be interested to hear if other folks steam and bend the entire inwale/outwales.
I wanted to try a new approach to the inwales and see if I could bend them all in one shot. I built a 20 foot long combination rail soaker and rail steamer out of PVC. I fired her up today.
I had mixed results. The open end didn't seem to get hot enough. I had a rag stuffed in there. The middle and far end of the tube seemed adequately hot. With a bit of finagling and perhaps leveling of this PVC system it may work yet, especially for cases when you are building a new canoe and clamping the inwale to the form. Maybe a heat source near each end would also assist.
When it came to bending, I was just too busy trying to clamp both ends of the rails to my inwale forms.
I did manage to bend one end (the hotter ends) of each inwale. I'll go back to my pine steam box tomorrow and do up the other ends. The PVC also seemed to lose heat quickly. Wood is a better insulator.
I'd be interested to hear if other folks steam and bend the entire inwale/outwales.