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I spent a couple days this week rounding up the parts for, making, and using a steam box to bend some moulding for the top of a curved top cabinet I am building. It brought back memories of the last time I steam bent some stops for an eliptical glass panel I cut into a door for a friend. So today, while typing this message to a friend, I thought “what the hay! the folks at Breaktime might get a kick out of this”.

Did I tell you about the last time I steamed some Oak and almost set the house afire? Well, for steam, I put a big kettle on the kitchen stove and directed the steam into the 9′ long box by placing the box directly over the kettle and the steam went through a 6″ square hole in one end of the box. Left both ends of the box open and regulated steam concentration by draping wet towels over the openings. Well, this worked so great that I decided to go do something else and asked one of the kids to “keep an eye on it” (is this called “a foreboding” in literature?).

So I go out to the shop, and before I can say “holysh*tthefrikkenhouseisonfire!” out runs one of the kids yellin’ “holy sh*t, dad, the frikken house is on fire!”

So into the house I run, and what was on fire was the towel that had been draped over the kettle and that end of the box! So I picks it up and run out of the house with this flaming box and what’s left of the towel and throw them on the lawn where they go out!
PHEW! That was a close one. All the water had boiled out of the pot, it got hot, and started the now dry towel on fire.

Sure, go ahead and laugh, the missus didn’t think it was very funny, I can assure you of that. That was the end of steam boxes in the house! Some folks just have no sense of humor, ya know? – jb