dowel bending

"gilles" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> does anyone know how i can bend small dowel rod without cutting them and
> glueing them together trod is 1/8 round up tp 3/8 round i havetried
> steam before it did not work mybe i did not leave it in steam long enought
> i tried boiling tin boiling water no luck any solution would be verry
> apriciated thank guys
> [email protected]
>

You may have to split out the dowel stock green and run it through a dowel
plate in order to reliably bend it... by splitting it out you end up with
continuous, but not necessarily straight, grain along the length. This way
you don't get short grain where the dowel would split when bent. I suspect
if you Google and look for something about splitting out ram rods for muzzle
loaders you'd find some useful information on how to make the dowel. By
using green wood you could probably just bend it into shape and let it dry
that way... expecting some spring back.

John

"gilles" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> does anyone know how i can bend small dowel rod without cutting them and
> glueing them together trod is 1/8 round up tp 3/8 round i havetried
> steam before it did not work mybe i did not leave it in steam long enought
> i tried boiling tin boiling water no luck any solution would be verry
> apriciated thank guys
> [email protected]
>
>
Last time I tried something like that it was balsa wood and for an
engineering prototype I was working on. All I did was steam it, secure it
in a bent position until it dried, steam it, secure it in a tighter bend,
steam it, repeat. You didn't say how far you need to bend it, but if you
take it SLOW it should bend - like a week maybe.