Bending the Bows: Part II

The picture above shows the stanchions set in place and waiting for the wood to be bent around them. They are mounted on a pattern board made from two 4' x 8' sheets of plywood upon which a cross section of the wagon is drawn. I then screwed down the stanchions following the curve drawn upon the pattern board.

Learning Curve Note: When I assembled the stanchions I just eyeballed the angle. Prior to bending the boards I had a conversation with Ash and Jeff, two fellow wagon builders, they said that it turned out to be very important that the stanchions be at a true right angle. After I bent my first set of bows I also found this to be true. As you stack the bows up the stanchions any deviation from the vertical becomes very noticeable and harder to deal with the higher you go.
So, make sure they are built at an exact 90 degree angle.

Continued in part III.

Bending the Bows Part I

The long white object laying along the sidewalk in the above photo is my soaking container. It is composed of two 10 foot lengths of 6" diameter PVC drain pipe joined in the middle and closed with a fixed cap at one end and a removable threaded plug at the other. It is filled with water, and four 16' x 2" x 3/8" lengths of Douglas Fir that are destined to be some of the bows for the wagon roof.
One way to bend the bows is to steam them for about an hour and then bend them around your stanchions. The other is soaking them and then bending. Since I didn't have a twenty foot long steam box or the propane tank, burner, and container to make the steam and didn't want the added expense of purchasing all those things, I decided on soaking.
I figured two weeks was a good round soaking time, so I put in some water and wood and let it sit. I rolled it back and forth once a day just to agitate the wood and make sure it was evenly wet.

Learning Curve Note: I soaked the wood in batches, it would have been easier and less time consuming to use larger diameter PVC and soak all the wood at once. Also I experienced some algae growth on two of the boards in the first batch, after that I added about a 1/4 cup of bleach to the soaking water and did not have any further problems.

Continued in next post.

18 Inches of Quality

The first 18 inches are done, five and a half feet to go. Well not quite completely done. I have to paint over the bolt heads, cut some more notches in the upper bench, and cover the whole thing with several coats of polyurethane varnish. Also I need to cap the interior bolts and put the last six inches of the interior sheeting over the gap at the ends once I bolt the end walls on. But other than that, the sides are finished.