I find this wood bending fun and interesting. I have plans to make a steering wheel for my Spyder. I'd like to have a "banjo" type that's a little smaller and not flexible like the one we all can buy. The following is a Helm wheel I made for a binnacle/helm I restored. The oak part of this wheel is laminated strips 1/8" X 1.25" in size. I used two sheets of 3/4" x 3' X 3' glued together with a 32' hole band-sawed out of the center. This was my form and laminated the strips from outside in. The " spring" of the unsteamed wood created it's own pressure without having to clamp it. The butt joints are end to end and staggered so no fuss was necessary to get tight joints. I made it oversize both inside and out so it could be trammel router trimmed once the average center was found again.
I can't imagine what thought had to go into building that hand rail but I'm sure it was a lot ! The end result being a work of art for sure. The suggestion of using 1/4" X 1/4 " strips makes a lot of sense. I really like that suggestion and it went into my permenent memory bank
