Stay Sharp
Well-known member
**DISCLAIMER*** This IS NOT a sales thread. I DO NOT sell snow shoes or bent wood art works!!! This is another learning by doing post. I AM NOT selling this stuff.
I'd wanted to learn to make snowshoes for some time but never got around to it. Then I corrected that. Before I set out to make actual sized and wearable snowshoes I started by making half scale versions to learn the process. Here is the process I used as I learn about steam bending wood. Im using oak since Ash is hard to come by here. I shaped and thinned the oak stick in the areas where the bends are otherwise it will break and I have broken many until I got a pattern that works.
Sadly Photobucket screwed over most folks and holds many of my images hostage so the pics of the steam bending are blurred but I transitioned to imgur and the rest of the pics are viewable.
The form I made.
The high tech steam creator (since one cant buy steam, premade) is just a turkey cooker (propane) and a big pot and aluminum dryer vent tube to the end of the PVC that holds the wood.
The steam chamber is PVC
After a hour of steam It can be coaxed around the form.
and the nose bent
After a day or two its dry enough to hold the shape and crossbars are added and its sanded because the steam raises hell with the wood
Then I lace the heel and toe with deer skin and varnish everything.
Since the prototypes are half scale and cant be worn and I didnt want to waste the effort, I turned the small snowshoes into wall art pieces. The first batch will have deerskin leather centers with artwork. I had a lot of tanned deer and elk hides and this seemed like a good use for them. I developed a process to ink artwork onto tanned hides which lent itself well to this effort.
Again, these are half scale.
Then I thought, since this is the 21st century I should make electric snowshoes so I bought a small light and cord set and fashioned up a lamp but I wanted a lamp that I could customize or change with the seasons. For the lampshade I printed oak and birch skin on legal sized paper on my printer. For the frame I steam bent small strips of oak.
Then I thought about adding a background that appears ONLY when the light is on. (with oak)
Then birch
Then I went kind of nuts because its easy to change the skins as I held the paper in place with long and thin magnet strips.
The sky was the limit for options in regards to silhouettes based on my mood and the season but then I had another thought on how to customize behind the bark only when the light is on.
I'd wanted to learn to make snowshoes for some time but never got around to it. Then I corrected that. Before I set out to make actual sized and wearable snowshoes I started by making half scale versions to learn the process. Here is the process I used as I learn about steam bending wood. Im using oak since Ash is hard to come by here. I shaped and thinned the oak stick in the areas where the bends are otherwise it will break and I have broken many until I got a pattern that works.
Sadly Photobucket screwed over most folks and holds many of my images hostage so the pics of the steam bending are blurred but I transitioned to imgur and the rest of the pics are viewable.
The form I made.
The high tech steam creator (since one cant buy steam, premade) is just a turkey cooker (propane) and a big pot and aluminum dryer vent tube to the end of the PVC that holds the wood.
The steam chamber is PVC
After a hour of steam It can be coaxed around the form.
and the nose bent
After a day or two its dry enough to hold the shape and crossbars are added and its sanded because the steam raises hell with the wood
Then I lace the heel and toe with deer skin and varnish everything.
Since the prototypes are half scale and cant be worn and I didnt want to waste the effort, I turned the small snowshoes into wall art pieces. The first batch will have deerskin leather centers with artwork. I had a lot of tanned deer and elk hides and this seemed like a good use for them. I developed a process to ink artwork onto tanned hides which lent itself well to this effort.
Again, these are half scale.
Then I thought, since this is the 21st century I should make electric snowshoes so I bought a small light and cord set and fashioned up a lamp but I wanted a lamp that I could customize or change with the seasons. For the lampshade I printed oak and birch skin on legal sized paper on my printer. For the frame I steam bent small strips of oak.
Then I thought about adding a background that appears ONLY when the light is on. (with oak)
Then birch
Then I went kind of nuts because its easy to change the skins as I held the paper in place with long and thin magnet strips.
The sky was the limit for options in regards to silhouettes based on my mood and the season but then I had another thought on how to customize behind the bark only when the light is on.
