Steaming and bending wood: Grab a crying chair

Yes, white oak is excellent for bending.

 

Best timber for steaming i ever used was a batch of old stock canadan rock elm i found some years ago, even though it was air dried for 40 years it steamed fine, the caveat was i soaked it for a few days first!
Green oak steams well but if it is of any age it is best to soak it for a week before it goes in the steambox.

 

I steamed/laminated two stems (8 laminates each) last week using black locust that I cut last winter. I found it to take the bend very easily although the bend wasn't significant. I put the plain sawn pieces "inside" and used straight grained pieces for the outer pieces. I used TBIII. So far so good.

Gary

 

excellent video

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In my very limited experience (4 gunwales) I used the usual wallpaper stripper with plastic drain pipe as the steam box.

 I wish I had known about this method at the time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--iPQIwSEJM