I read where someone was microwave cooking shingles to put on a house, However those were shingles. I need to do shakes. I need to do a lot of shakes.. over a thousand feet of shakes. Handsplit cedar shakes. (Thick)
I tried as suggested but found it took way too long to do one enough to put into the form and succesfully bend from start to finish it was over 20 minutes. My calculation is over 1000 hours..
If I bend two feet at once I can cut that to around 175 hours,, still a sizeable amount of time but somewhat more realistic.
I can envison a homemade contraption which would use a propane camp stove buner (Really large) I have, heating up a round 5 gallon can filled with water with the spout pumping stem into a steam bending box with the correct shape molded into it and a heavy weight sitting on top causing the shingles to bend into shape as soon as the steam softens them enough. Once they are bent into shape I take a garden hose and spray cold water to “fix” them into that shape and remove them from the form quickly adding new shakes in and closing the steam box back up..
Questions I have include the following.
1
what is the minimum amount of water I can use since the more water the slower it will come to a boil and the longer it will take.
2
(there isn’t a commercial thing like this that I can rent is there?) Do I have to make my own jury rig, rig?
3 what am I missing or forgetting?
Replies
3)
Shakes don't bend well.
There is a technique for making a shake roof APPEAR curved, but I need to know more about the details and what the proposed radius is
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Kerf the backs of the splits.
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PIffan,
I would guess the radius is about 18 inches. I just Grabbed a can that I had (I think it was the 5 gallon can I intend to use as a boiler) and drew that radius on the tailend of my rafter stock and used that as a pattern on all the rest of my rafters. I've seen shakes bent to about that radius locally and I first became enamored with the idea when I bought my first Fine Home Building Magazine About 25 years ago it was on the cover!
I saw something similar on a cover about 1986 and still have that copy. It's just a picture and not a description of the technique though. I recall seeing the technique of bent shakes one other time since then but can't remember the particular issue.
For the last two years I've had asphalt shingles on the section of roof that will be covered. It looks OK but doesn't have that built up look I intend. Now that the curved bow of the lakeside of the roof is about complete instead of putting asphalt shingles on only to tear them off in a few years when I put the shakes on I'm going directly for the shakes now..
I realize I'm entering the realm of boat building here but you'd think that with all the experience that this board has someone would either remeber the article or know the technique..
Just a brief description, the radius in the rafter tails eliminates the normal facia plate that is on most roofs. Anotherwords it's bent down so the back side of the shakes can rest firmly against the mold and later the roof..
I did a FH.com search and found the article in #23 page 52-56, 11-1-84. This is a great resource and is worth every penny even though I subscribe to the magazine also.You get out of life what you put into it......minus taxes.
Marv
Thanks Marv.
I forgot that they have that service, I'll subscribe and do a search.. thanks for the help!
Frenchy,
A person who works with green wood making chairs, uses a homemade jig. Basically a pair of 2x4's with 3 "studs" between them.
Steam/boil the shakes,a nd flex them interwoven between the studs, allow to dry. This stud spacing will determine the amount of BOW you create. Make multiple frames, and do a batch at a time.
This is one method of how chair backs and splats are steam bent.
____________I I I____________ Sorta like this.
sphere,
any idea of the amount of water needed? My goal is to use no more water than I need steam since it will take extra time to heat up extra water into steam and only steam does the work, not the hot water left behind..
No , I don't have a hard and fast formula. What we did at one time, was put a 55 gallon drum on a fire with about maybe 6" of water in it. a few concrete blocks elevated a wire rack from an old reefer, and the wood parts just went in and covered with a sheetmetal lid.
Boil and take a chair back post ( 1.75" Dia. Hickory) and try to bend it to a form, if it was too hard, back in it went.
It ain't an exact science. I'd think a normal cedar shake would be "done" in about 30 mins using this method.
Maybe a 30 gallon drum would be better for that size parts, we needed to get rather long posts in the drum.
Rule of thumb for steaming hardwood is an hour per inch of thickness.Softwood like shakes might be shorter time since they average 3/4" thick at butts. frenchy, I didn't realize you were curnving down ateave instead of curving up in the roof.
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Yeah, dats why I said he might get by at 30 mins for cedar shakes.
We didn't need to get the Hick floppy soft, just more pliable, it was already green at the start.
I figgure he do a slew at once in the drum, and spend all day stoking the fire, adding water, loading and unloading, if he has enough set frames made up.
Alternating the weave in the frame, and depending on how long he makes them, might get 6-8 or more in one frame.
Repeat as needed. Let them "set" overnight, or till dry.
Sphere,
I was thinking that spraying them with cold water would help them take a set quicker.. since steam is what bends them cold water should "freeze" them?
That I do not know, never tried it. I just let it dry by the fire.
It is not the temperature. It is the moisture swelling the cells of the wood. The heat just helps move the moisture into the cells.What would help them take a set is to dry them on the inside of the curve first - in theory
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