STEAM BENDING

-A Visual Map

1.The wood gets steamed and softened.
2. it is clamped in position onto a jig
3.it is formed by the jig

choosing the high quality timber, hardwoods are better for bending compare to softwoods, for making furniture, beech
and ash are more frequently used

creating a box for steaming the timber later on, the box can be in the form of a tube or a coboid

generating the forming mold for shaping the wood, and drilling holes onto it to facilating the clamps to anchor the timber tightly on the mold.

steaming the timber

using multiple clamps to fix and fast the steamed wood onto the forming mold, ideally it would be better that there is another person to help clamping together, this action should not take too long

waiting patiently, the optimal waiting time depends on the scale of the timber, certainly the more waiting time the less springback of the wood may happen.

luckily, the result turns out like you anticipated. need to be aware, steam bending is not suitable for pieces demanding highly precision beause no these bentwood will be ultimately identical.

-The materials (most commonly) used for your technique

furniture: beech and ash
Construction: oak
Boatbuilding: elm, ash and willow
Musical instrument: Maple
Others: birch, hickory, larch, iroko

MAIN PRINCPLE

— How the technique is controlled (by analogue or digital means, or both)

—Existing products which your technique is used to produce

— The industry sector within which your technique is (most commonly) used

— possible points of intervention into your production technique

analogue

Manually bending

Circle bending
- form enclosed ring, eg. Frames and armrests

Open bending – open ended bend profiles, eg. backrest

Thonet chair No.214 ( first mass produced chair by the company)

power assisted, used for single axis bends