[Public-List] Steam bending Teak

[Janet Kirk]

Thanks to Michael,  Rob Alley, Mike Lehman, Greg Bover, and William 
Winslow, I got quite a few leads on my question about steam bending.  It 
was interesting reading all the references; there's a lot. In general, oak 
is the favorite wood for bending, but there are quite a few that are 
satisfactory, I even found properties of teak in one of my ancient 
mechanical engineering handbooks. Most references call teak "moderate" in 
bendability but one reference call it "good". It must be at least OK to 
bend, because Whitby bent an awful lot of teak toerails without apparent 
problems.

I had to replace a couple of short sections of Isobar's toe rail although I 
wound up shaping the short strips and scarfing them in instead of steaming.

Along the way learning more about bending, I found quite a few discussions 
about the kind of glue to use in laminated beams. I recall someone 
(Michael?) was thinking of building a new wood laminate beam in lieu of the 
less than lovely aluminum sister bream. Conclusion: epoxy's not so great 
because of a tendency to creep under load. Best choice is one of the 
plastic resin/urea formaldehyde glues like DAP Weldwood Plastic Resin or 
URAC 105, or good old Resorcinol. Resorcinol is water "proof" while the 
others water "resistant". I don't think water resistance is a problem for 
the mast beam, since if that's subject to a lot of wetness, you've got 
other major problems  like sinking. All these glues are strong and less 
subject to creep.

Bob Kirk
Isobar #181


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