Subject: [baidarka] The great walnut rib experiment
From: Phil Ellis (pcoellis@hotmail.com)
Date: Sun Apr 14 2002 - 21:42:54 EDT
After a thunderstorm ran me off the lake this afternoon, I hung up my wet
gear, downed a plate of spaghetti, then broke out the steam box, loaded it
with straight-grained 1/4" x 1-1/4" walnut rib blanks, set the timer for 15
min, and kicked back with a glass of shiraz and a copy of "Eskimo Life". I
hadn't even begun to catch a buzz when the timer went off (15 min). I donned
the yellow gloves, whipped the lucky piece of rib stock out of the steam
box, and bent it like...well, like the sticks of spaghetti I'd just
consumed. No back band, no ominous crackling, no sudden splinters,
nothing...it just bent into a nice, flexible curve and I bent it into the
cockpit mockup I had waiting out on the porch. Tomorrow, my stash of ash,
oak and hickory are headed for the wood pile.
As you may recall from our previous episode, I had perused several books on
wood bending, and all had agreed that walnut could be bent to a tighter
radius than ash, and two of them ranked it right up there with white oak and
elm. In addition, it is similar in weight and strength to ash, which is to
say, less dense than oak, elm, or hickory. So what am I missing? How come
I've never heard of this before? Does walnut have some hidden weakness as a
boat building wood? Am I missing something obvious?
Puzzled,
Phil
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