David Stroud posted:edsnova posted:Todd M posted:"A lot of things in a car build don't work out the way you planned."
Now, THAT was funny!
And whatever my car build is throwing at me, my staircase project throws triple. It took me 4 tries to build half of the curved maple handrail. And I'm still not satisfied, but I think I may have a mutiny on my hands if I started the handrail over; again.
Having bent wood a few times (shelves, barreled tin ceiling) let me just say that a helix maple hand railing like that is some major league stylings and not at all suited for the beginner with two bread boards and a tool box under his belt.
I tip my hat.
Looks like a tricky project. Do you steam the wood first and how to you calculate for spring back ?
I am so glad that someone asked about this, cuz everyone in my circle of family and friends is tired of hearing about it.
It may have not been so difficult, but the manufacturers of the laminations kits for making curved handrails recommend a radius of no less than four feet, and the inner radius of my design is two feet. Plus, the hand rail kits that you can buy to make your curved handrail are expensive, so I had the bright idea of cutting the laminations and profiled pieces myself. Yes, I steam bent, (compressed), the sticks, and glued them once they were partially compressed. I say compressed because it turns out that if you try to steam bend maple into a helical curve with a radius of two feet, it will break. Instead, you have to make a bendable metal jig to keep the outside of the sticks from stretching with the intent of all the bending compressing the fibers. I didn't account for the spring back because I did not want to build a extra form with an even smaller radius, and when I first started I did not know how the maple would react to a two foot radius curve. The compressed sticks sprung back, a lot, but when three or four sticks are glued, the spring back becomes negligible.
Anywhooz, after one test lamination and two concerted tries with my own pieces, I broke down and bought the sticks from a kit manufacturer which have a lengthwise keyway to keep the laminations in line during glue up. And I bought the plastic outside forms which match the profile and keep the profile from being damaged from the clamps. Yeah, I found that out from experience also.
This is way off topic, but the point is that y'all are helping me tremendously with my coupe build, and if anyone has a question about repairing or improving something on their house, please feel free to ask me.