Sources for green wood for some serious bending

[RogerS]

My mate, Pete, who is renovating his third veteran car..pictures on another thread ...has asked me the following.

`The email thread starts at the bottom

Pete would welcome any suggestions re (a) bending the tight curves with, presumably, green wood and (b) a source of same

On 16 Apr 2025, at 10:26, Peter Wilcox .....

Hi Roger,

There are five hoops in the hood and they're all different, but each involves two bends of, in the worse cases, 90 degrees with an internal radius of about 125 mm. The wood is about 32 x 38 mm section, slightly rounded.

I thought of laminating them if all else fails but they're pretty visible on the car and just wouldn't look right. I was hoping you'd know of a source of green or only slightly dried wood but I knew it was a long shot!

Pete

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On 15/04/2025 18:11, Roger wrote:
Hi Pete

I had a similar problem when I was making some arches to go in the lantern above the front door. I gave up trying to steam …kept getting breaks. What sort of curvature are you after ?

In the end I ended up laminating around a pseudo-former. Lots of strips the right width and about 5mm thick…depends on the curvature.

This might give you some idea

Cheers

Roger
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On 15 Apr 2025, at 17:57, Peter Wilcox ...


I'm building the hood for my car. I've completed the complex folding metal parts of the structure but I now need to make the five steam-bent ash 'hoops' that link the two sides together.

Making a steam chamber and the formers to bend the wood around are the easy bits. The trick seems to be having wood with the right moisture content. I've seen figures of 15 to 20% for kiln dried timber and ~25% for air dried. Obviously green timber is higher.

It seems that kiln dried can't be steam bent; air dried can but with difficulty and a risk of fracturing; green wood is best.

I haven't yet talked to Tyler Hardwoods who I bought the wood for the body from, but I'm sure their wood is kiln dried. When I did the other car years ago the wood was air dried and I'm sure I could have bought some that had only been drying for say six months instead of 3 years. But that firm closed years ago.

Any thoughts?

All the best,

Pete

 

[Blackswanwood]

Roger, I'd suggest he speaks with Patrick at

Who We Are

Here at Forest 2 Furniture we stock the widest range in the UK of timber grown in Sherwood Forest and surrounding area. We also offer a tree milling service

www.forest2furniture.com

Cheers

Robert

 

[Dr.Al]

I think Wentwood Timber will also cut green wood to order (as opposed to the dry wood which you basically have to take in the sizes they've pre-prepared)., so they might be worth a chat. If Tyler Hardwoods are relatively local to Pete then I suspect Wentwood (near Chepstow) will be closer than forest2furniture (Nottinghamshire).

 

[RogerS]

Thanks chaps. Pete says 'Thank you'

 

[spb]

Using green or less-dried timber will no doubt be much easier, but Dave Engel of Engel's Coach Shop has several videos online on the subject of steam bending kiln-dried wood, predominantly Ash. According to him the trick is to steam it under pressure, and for several times longer than you would for air-dried. He has a custom-made pressure steaming box for the purpose, so it's not going to be a cheap or simple endeavour, but apparently it can be done.