Cheap steamer

[Johnny Mike]

I have been away from building the Batavia for a while but I am now starting to work on it again.

 

I need to continue planking it and thought I would look at steamers as this is how I have done

bending before. I tried soaking and other methods and for me steaming works best.

 

I looked around at different methods both home made and purchased and I am going to

stick with what I have been doing because it is cheap and easy.

 

I have not followed this forum for a few years so this may be something that has been discussed before.

 

I just bought an electric tee pot years ago, I think for about $15.00, and found a piece of scrap plastic tube

cost $0.

 

As the picture shows I just set the pot on the floor and put the tube over the spout. 

 

Pretty crude but simple, cheap and effective.

 

[Jaager]

I agree, cheap and effective.

I wonder about heat and thin wall plastic,  I wonder how a thick wall cardboard mailing tube would do?  The kind that we get mail order plans rolled up in?

 

Alternate way.

Your are not bending a full size plank so steam may be more than is necessary,  as well as taking longer, needing time to dry and have the bend firmed up, and leaving a surface on the wood ( swollen fibers/raised grain ) that will need dressing.

 

Heat alone will bend model thickness wood.  It will not affect the surface like water does - provided it is not hot enough to char.   When the wood gets hot enough to start to bend around the heated surface, the bend can be shaped using fingers and the new shape is set almost instantly.

Dry heat application:  the old Aeropiccola plank benders are no longer cheap, and I did not see any large diameter replacement tips for economy soldering irons,  but as others have recomended here,  a basic curling iron has a large enough barrel and I imagine a temp limit that is a lot lower than a soldering iron.  It may take bit bit longer to transfer enough heat, but you should be able to get fingers on the bend to shape it more quickly.  A dimmer switch may provide even more heat control.

[Johnny Mike]

Hello

 

The tube I found is used as hand railing. I am not sure what the material is but it is tough and I have used it for steaming many planks for years

and it hasn't degraded at all and is not effected by the steam or heat.

 

I have tried using other methods of dry heat but I keep going back to my cheap steamer. It seems to suite my pace.

 

 

 

 

[Tim Holt]

I can't be the only person who saw the title and thought, "Oh, a steam ship model!  That's a bit different than most builds.  I wonder what they mean by 'cheap' though?"

[allanyed]

Steam may be huge overkill for our modeling purposes.   I find that the Kammerlander method of soaking the wood in water anywhere from 5 to 30 minutes, depending on the thickness of the wood, then heating with a  hot iron works very quickly and very well for both soft wood and hard wood up to about Janka 2000 (Castello is 1820).  English boxwood is a challenge but I save my little supply for carving work small pieces that would be prone to breaking with other species.   (English boxwood is J2800)   A video of the Kammerlander method was posted here at MSW last year by member  Dziadeczek.     

Allan