At one time you could order a 1 1/8" thick one piece bent wood rim / tub blank that would finish at 7/8 thick from Stewart Mac. I found out who makes them. Its Chris Mroz at http://extremewoodbending.com/home/aboutpuretimber.html. These are not thick enough to make my rims from. I need to finish at 1 3/8" thick.
But if your a builder it might be fun to try one of thier rims out. He gets about $15 extra per inch foot of wood. A rim / tub blank ends up around $250
For the Tekies here is how its done.
He takes a ten (10) foot long 1 1/8" thick board, saturates it with water (probably in an autoclave under vaccume) then compresses it lenghtwise to eight (8) foot long. Then streaches /relaxes it back to nine foot (9). This breaks all of the grain bonds. As long as the wood is still wet it is plyable like a thick sheet of rubber. At this point it can be COLD formed! The wood regains its bonds when it dries at whatever shape and retains that shape.
Pretty cool hu? It is a patented process so with this information don't try and sell your own cold formed rims. Chris will win the lawsuit.
Why does this work?
Compressing the wood on inside when bending a rim is the difficult part. This wood is precompressed allowing the inside to compress a little more and the outside to streach. Science can be cool.
But if your a builder it might be fun to try one of thier rims out. He gets about $15 extra per inch foot of wood. A rim / tub blank ends up around $250
For the Tekies here is how its done.
He takes a ten (10) foot long 1 1/8" thick board, saturates it with water (probably in an autoclave under vaccume) then compresses it lenghtwise to eight (8) foot long. Then streaches /relaxes it back to nine foot (9). This breaks all of the grain bonds. As long as the wood is still wet it is plyable like a thick sheet of rubber. At this point it can be COLD formed! The wood regains its bonds when it dries at whatever shape and retains that shape.
Pretty cool hu? It is a patented process so with this information don't try and sell your own cold formed rims. Chris will win the lawsuit.
Why does this work?
Compressing the wood on inside when bending a rim is the difficult part. This wood is precompressed allowing the inside to compress a little more and the outside to streach. Science can be cool.
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