Guava wood for bending small boat ribs

[Kevin Kenny]

I have just secured some Guava wood which i have put in drying rack. My hope that this will allow me to steam bend ribs to be used in building life boats ribs. Tbis wood has excellent bending properties but until i use it i will not know if it will perform as I wish. 

[grsjax]

Hi

I have some quava drying now.  What type of quava are you using.  Here in Hawaii we have several varieties of quava some with very different qualities.  What I have now is white quava which looks to be very good.  There is also yellow, red and strawberry quava.  The last is really hard to season.  Seems no matter what I try it splits badly.  

[Kevin Kenny]

I am not sure of the type as it is a local guava that we grew up with but i will investigate and get back to you. The reason i decided to try is that it is a very bendy wood particually when dry. In my youth it was a favourite stick uaed to keep us in line. 

 

If your wood blanks are splitting do you paint the end grain? If you do not seal the ends of the planks it will split as the ends dry out before the center. This happens with most hard woods

[grsjax]

Hi

Yes I paint the end grain of all my green wood.  The strawberry guava just doesn't do well when it is drying.  I have been looking for a tree that died standing hoping that drying out like that will make the wood more usable.

[Kevin Kenny]

Just cut and bent some trial ribs. The first one 1.5mm thick. Soaked the strip and then bent on the form. One side bent while the other splintered on the bend . I reduced the size to 1 mm thick and it bent beautifully on both sides.

Edited January 21, 2019 by Kevin Kenny
Spellinh

[Kevin Kenny]

Reduced the thickness even further to .05mm and it even took a compound curve without cracking. So I am vey happy. The wood is still green cut about a month ago as such it has not totally dried out. It will be interesting to repeat this in two months time and see the results.