Despite all its strength and strength, wooden parts can be easily and simply bent, if suddenly during the construction process you need some special and original oval or round details. When properly processed, a tree lends itself easily to changing its shape, and to carry out this procedure you can use your on their own without the help of professionals.

Types of work

There are two main ways to bend a tree to the desired shape and one of them is cold, the other is hot. As the name implies, the methods differ only in the use of hot temperatures, in terms of efficiency, both of these methods are completely the same, just hot way fixing the tree is much faster. For each method, you will need glue, pva or wallpaper, depending on what is at hand, you do not need to buy anything special. And with the help of metal parts, you can create a kind of press or frame that will hold the tree in the desired shape. In order to bend the timber, it is necessary to grease it with glue, strongly and thoroughly, without fear that the tree will become wet from this. In fact, under the influence of the glue solution, all excess moisture will leave the tree, and it will become even stronger and stronger, which is extremely important. After the timber has been greased with glue, it must be fixed with tools in the desired shape, and in the case of a cold work process, simply leave it fixed to dry. If you choose hot, then the timber should be covered with a regular film so that it dries faster and all the moisture evaporates.

Durability

Whichever method is chosen, both are effective and work in the same way. The bar is completely fixed in its new form, and will no longer return to the old one. You can bend a wet bar from the glue as much as possible without fear that it will break. And as a result, you will receive an original and beautiful piece of furniture or detail to create an even more attractive interior of the house or its facade. The timber bent with glue will not even need to be processed for durability, which is extremely convenient. Moisture will not soak through adhesive solution, and insects will not encroach on such a tree, in which there will be much more glue. That is why this method is the most optimal and practical if you urgently need to bend a wooden beam.

If there is a need to make a curved wood element, then at first glance it may seem that it is easier to cut the desired element in a curved form, but in this case the fibers wood material will be cut, thus weakening the strength of the part, and as a result, of the entire product. In addition, when sawing, a large waste of material is obtained, which cannot be said about the method when a wooden blank is simply bent.

Wood is cellulose fibers bound together by a chemical called lignin. The flexibility of the tree depends on the location of the fibers.

Only well-dried wood will be a reliable and durable raw material for the production of various products. However, changing the shape of a dry piece of wood is a difficult process, because dry wood may break, which is very undesirable.

Having studied the technology, how to bend a tree, as well as the basic physical properties wood, which allow you to change its shape and subsequently preserve it, it is quite possible to start bending wood at home.

Some features of working with wood

Bending of wood is accompanied by its deformation, as well as compression of the inner layers and stretching of the outer ones. It so happens that tensile forces lead to rupture of the outer fibers. This can be prevented by performing preliminary hydrothermal treatment.

So, you can bend a piece of timber made of solid wood and glued wood. In addition, sliced ​​and peeled veneer is used for bending. The most plastic are hardwoods. These include beech, ash, birch, hornbeam, maple, oak, poplar, linden and alder. Bent glued blanks are best made from birch veneer. It should be noted that birch veneer accounts for about 60% of the total volume of bent-glued blanks.

When the workpiece is steamed, the compressive ability is significantly increased, namely by a third, while the stretchability is increased by only a few percent. And, therefore, thinking about whether it is possible to bend a tree thicker than 2 cm is not worth a priori.

Heating in a steam box

The first step is to prepare the steam box. It can be hand made. Its main task is to hold the tree that needs to be bent. It must have an opening for the vapor pressure to escape. V otherwise it will explode.

The steam outlet must be located in the bottom of the box. In addition, the box should have a removable cover through which it will be possible to pull out the bent tree after it has acquired the desired shape. Clamps should be used to hold the wood bent part in the desired shape. You can make them yourself from wood or buy them in a specialty store.

Round scraps should be made of wood - several pieces. Off-center holes are drilled in them. After that, you need to push the bolts through them, and then drill another hole through the sides to push them tightly. Such simple crafts can be excellent clips.

Now is the time to steam the wood, for this you need to take care of the heat source and close the wood blank in the steam box. For every 2.5 cm of the thickness of the workpiece, it takes about an hour to steam the product. After the expiration of time, the tree must be taken out of the box and given the required shape. The process must be very fast. The workpiece is bent neatly and softly.

Some types of wood bend more easily than others due to different elasticity. Different ways require the application of force of different magnitude.

Once the desired result is achieved, the bent tree must be fixed in this position. You can fix the tree when it is forming. This makes it easier to control the process.

Using chemical impregnation

To break the bonds of lignin between the fibers, you can act on the tree chemicals, and it is quite possible to do this at home. Ammonia is ideal for this. The workpiece is soaked at 25% aqueous solution ammonia. After that, it becomes very obedient and elastic, which allows you to bend, twist it and squeeze out relief forms in it under the press.

Ammonia is dangerous! Therefore, when working with it, you should follow all safety rules. The soaking of the workpiece should be carried out in a tightly closed container located in a well-ventilated room.

The longer the wood is in the ammonia solution, the more plastic it becomes. After soaking the workpiece and shaping it, you need to leave it in this curved form. This is necessary for fixing the shape, and for the ammonia to evaporate. Again, leave the bent tree in a ventilated area. Interestingly, after the evaporation of ammonia, the wood fibers will regain their former strength, and this will allow the workpiece to keep its shape!

Layering method

First you need to make a piece of wood, which will be bent. The boards should be slightly longer than the length of the finished piece. This is because the bend will shorten the lamellas. Before you start cutting, draw a diagonal line with a pencil. This must be done across the underside of the board. This will maintain the consistency of the lamellas after they have been moved.

Boards are cut with a straight edge, never with the front side. So, they can be added together with the smallest change. A cork layer is applied to the mold. This will help to avoid unevenness in the saw shape, which will allow for a clearer bend. In addition, the cork will keep the delamination in shape. Now glue is applied to the top side of one of the wooden lamellas.

The glue is applied to the lamellas with a roller. It is best to use a 2-part urea-formaldehyde adhesive. He possesses high level adhesion, but dries for a long time. You can also use epoxy resin, but such a composition is very expensive, and not everyone can afford it. Standard wood glue cannot be used in this case. It dries quickly, but is very soft, which is not welcome in this situation.

The bent wood blank should be placed in the mold as soon as possible. So, one more lamella is laid on the lamella smeared with glue. The process repeats until bent blank will not acquire the required thickness. The boards are held together. After the glue is completely dry, you should shorten it to the desired length.

Drank like a method

The prepared piece of wood must be sawed off. The cuts are made 2/3 of the thickness of the workpiece. They should be with inside bending. Be extremely careful as rough cuts can break the tree.

The key to success when cutting cuts is keeping the spacing between the cuts as even as possible. Ideally 1.25 cm.

The cuts are made across the wood pattern. Next, squeeze the edges of the workpiece so as to connect the resulting gaps together. The bend will acquire this shape at the end of the work. Then the bend is corrected. Often outside processed with veneer, in some cases with laminate. This action allows you to correct the bend and hide any defects in the manufacturing process. The gaps between the bent tree are easy to hide - for this, glue and sawdust are mixed, and then the gaps are filled with this mixture.

Regardless of the bending method, after the tree has been removed from the shape, the bend will relax slightly. In view of this, it needs to be done a little more in order to subsequently compensate for this effect. The sawing method can be used when bending a piece of a box or a metal corner.

Often in the process renovation works there is a need to obtain curved surfaces of products made of wood. How to bend the board so that the bending point is strong and does not crack during the bending process? Well, if you have already decided to do overhaul do it yourself, then you should not retreat in front of such difficulties. In this article, we will talk in detail about how to give woody material a curved shape.

No, our task is not at all to bend an innocent plant. It is about woody building materials... How to bend a tree so that it bends instead of breaking? Bending method wooden products It has been known since ancient times: to give the wood shape, only heat and moisture are needed, under the influence of which the plasticity of the material increases with all the ensuing consequences. How to bend a tree? Hold it in hot water(the higher the temperature, the faster the processes occur) or steam (the steam generator can be built from a kettle or use an iron). The higher the temperature, the faster the wood will give up and you can start bending it. The moistened and heated wood can be bent under the action of the load (the ends of the board are laid on the supports), and a load is placed in the place of the future bend. Dried wood perfectly retains the minimum radius of curvature that was achieved during the bending process. Now we know how to bend a tree, we can dwell on this issue in more detail.

The reaction of wood to external influences

The fact is that wood reacts differently to bending. The convex part is stretched, the concave part is compressed. Moreover, the material also reacts differently to steaming. For example, the ability to squeeze increases by as much as a third, but to stretch - just a couple of percent... That is why you should not think about how to bend a board more than two centimeters thick at home. It should also be borne in mind that different types woods react differently to bending. For example, such species as oak, larch, maple bend poorly, but beech, ash, walnut are good. So before thinking about how to bend your board, decide on the type of wood it is made of.

How to bend plywood, fiberboard, MDF

At home, plywood is bent by increasing its moisture content, followed by ironing (an iron is required), and fixing it in a template. Any frame element can serve as a template, and its shape does not necessarily have to be curvilinear. The product is attached to the template with adhesive tape. You can clamp the bent plywood between two spacers, give it a bent shape using ropes, tying them around the product in several places along the radius of curvature. Plywood can only be used after it is dry. It seems that we figured out how to bend the plywood - let's move on.

How to bend fiberboard? The technique is the same as in the previous case! How to bend MDF? In this case, you can go in two ways: either bend thin sheets (no more than 5 mm) and glue them together, or use flexible MDF, in which there are transverse slots on one of the sides. The thickness of such sheets is usually 8 mm. When bent, they are superimposed on each other with milled sides, after which they are glued. That's all, actually!

If there is a need to develop a curved element made of wood, then most likely you will encounter a number of difficulties. At first glance, it will seem that it will be easier to cut the required element in a curved form, however, in this option the fibers of the wood will be cut and weaken the reliability of the part. Plus to this, during execution, a very large consumption of material comes out.

Stages of performing work on bending the board at home:

Wood is cellulose fibers that are linked by lignin. Placing the fibers in a straight line affects the flexibility of the wood material.

Tip: durable and reliable material from wood for the manufacture of all kinds of products can come out only under the conditions that the wood is perfectly dried. However, changing the shape of a dry piece of wood is a rather laborious process, since a dry tree can easily break.

Having studied the technology of bending a tree, including its basic physical properties of wood, which allow it to change its shape, it is quite possible to bend the wood material into artisanal conditions.

Specifics of working with wood

Bending of wood material is accompanied by its deformation, stretching of the outer layers and compression of the inner ones. It so happens that the tensile force leads to rupture of the outer fibers. This can be prevented by performing a preliminary hydrothermal finishing.

Can bend billets made of glued and solid wood. Plus, to give the desired shape, they use peeled and sliced ​​veneer. The most plastic is considered to be a hardwood. This includes beech, birch, hornbeam, ash, maple, oak, linden, poplar and alder. Glued bent blanks are best made from birch veneer. It should be noted that in the total volume of such blanks, about 60% falls on birch veneer.

According to the production technology of bent wood, when the workpiece is steamed, its ability to compress significantly increases, and specifically by a third, while the possibility of stretching increases by only a few percent. Thanks to this, one cannot even think about the fact that bend wood is thicker than 2 cm.

How bend board in artisanal conditions: heating in a steam box

The first step is to prepare a steam box that can be made with my own hands... Its main task is to restrain the tree that is required bend... There must be an opening in it, which is intended for the exit of steam. Otherwise, an explosion may occur under pressure.

This hole should be located in the bottom of the box. Plus, in the box, you need to calculate a removable cover through which it will be possible to remove the bent wood as soon as it gets the required shape. In order to hold the bent wood blank in the required shape, it is necessary to use special clamps. They can be done without outside help made of wood or purchased at a building materials store.

Several round cuts are made from wood. Off-center holes are drilled in them. After that, you should push the bolts through them, and then drill another one through the sides to push them firmly. Such simple crafts can perfectly play the role of clamps.

Now you can start steaming the wood. To do this, you need to close the wood block in a steam box and take care of the heat source. For every 2.5 cm of the thickness of the product, the time spent on steaming will be about an hour. After its expiration, the tree should be removed from the box and given the required shape by bending. The process should be done quickly enough, and the bending itself should be soft and gentle.

Tip: Due to the varying degrees of flexibility, some types of wood will bend more easily than others. Any method requires the application of different amounts of force.

As soon as the result that you want to get is achieved, the bent workpiece must be fixed in this position. Fastening a tree is possible during its development new form, thanks to which it will become quite easier to control the process.

How bend board in artisanal conditions using chemical impregnation

Since lignin is responsible for the stability of wood, its bonds with fibers should be destroyed. This is achieved chemically, and it is quite possible to do this in artisanal conditions... The most optimal for such purposes is suitable ammonia... The workpiece is soaked in a 25% aqueous solution of ammonia, which greatly increases its plasticity. Similarly, there will be an opportunity bend, twist it or squeeze out some relief forms under the press.

Advice: you should look at the fact that ammonia is dangerous! Due to this, while working with it, it is necessary to strictly adhere to all safety rules. The soaking of wood must be carried out in a tightly closed container, which is located in a well-ventilated area.

The longer the wood is soaked in the ammonia solution, the more plastic it will become later on. After soaking the workpiece and developing its new shape, it is necessary to leave it in a similar curved form. This is necessary not only for fixing the shape, but also for the evaporation of ammonia. However, it is necessary to leave the bent tree in a ventilated area. It is noteworthy that when the ammonia weathered, the wood fibers will acquire the same reliability as before, which will enable the workpiece to keep its own shape!

How bend board in artisanal conditions: layering method

First you need to make a piece of wood, which will later be inclined to bend. It is very, very important that the boards are slightly longer than the length of the required part. This can be explained by the fact that the bend tames the lamellas. Before you start cutting, you need to draw a straight line with a pencil diagonally. This must be done across the underside of the workpiece, which will make it possible to preserve their sequence after moving the lamellas.

The boards must be cut with a straight edge, and not at all with the front side. Likewise, they can be lodged with the least change. The cork layer is applied to the mold, which can help avoid any irregularities in the saw shape and allow for a smoother bend. Plus, the cork will keep the delamination in shape. After that, glue is applied with a roller to the upper side of one of the lamellas.

It is best to use a 2-part urea-formaldehyde glue. It has a high level of adhesion, but dries for a long time. You can also apply resin to epoxy base, but such a composition will cost decent money, and absolutely not everyone can give it to themselves. A typical version of wood glue in this version is not suitable. Although it will dry quickly, it is considered too soft, which is not at all welcome in this version.

The bent wood product must be fitted into the mold as soon as possible. So, on the lamella, smeared with glue, another one lays down. The process must be repeated until the bent workpiece receives required thickness... The boards are fixed together. After the glue has completely dried, it is necessary to make it shorter to the required length.

How bend board in artisanal conditions: cut

The prepared piece of wood must be sawed off. The cuts are calculated at 2/3 of the thickness of the workpiece. They must be inside the bend. It is necessary to be very careful, as rough cuts can be difficult to deform the tree, and fully break.

Tip: The key to cutting success is keeping the distance between the cuts as even as possible. The best option 1.25 cm.

The cuts are made across the wood pattern. After that, you need to squeeze the edges of the workpiece, which will make it possible to combine the resulting slots into a single whole. This is the shape that the bend gets at the end of the work. Then he is corrected. In many cases, the outer side is finished with veneer, less often with laminate. This effect will give you the opportunity to correct the bend and hide almost any flaws in the manufacture. Gaps in bent tree they hide easily enough - for this, sawdust and glue are mixed, after which the gaps are filled with the mixture.

Regardless of the bend option, as soon as the workpiece is removed from the mold, the bend will relax slightly. In view of this, it must be performed a little larger in order to reimburse later this effect... The sawing method is used when bending a metal corner or part of a box.

So, using such tips you can without big problems bend tree with your own hands.