Great historical reference. Thank you.
I was an AWI affiliate back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Seeing your shop makes me homesick. I still have your scraper(the one on the right)in my tool box.
We did an awful lot of circle head sash and door frames for one of our well known period restoration contractors. We bent a lot of NE WP and some Hond Mah and we had a steam chamber that was very helpful. I'd have to say that 100% of our bends ran the grain long. We mixed waterproof brown powder so it was easy to set the viscosity and cure time.
A major ship builder near me used miles and miles of Hoover laminated wood fire retardant scaffolding. The scaffolding was load bearing. My memory is that all of the plys ran long. There was no loss of lateral or longitudinal integrity. My point, of course, is that laminated products which lay up parallel grain components are suitably strong. It would seem that post-formed components layed up with their grain running parallel would be more than suitable for these bridge racks. Even if Martin went from a 3 ply to a 5 ply build, things should work well. We always felt that glue was stronger than wood. Please share your thoughts.
Best regards,
BOXCAR
I was an AWI affiliate back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Seeing your shop makes me homesick. I still have your scraper(the one on the right)in my tool box.
We did an awful lot of circle head sash and door frames for one of our well known period restoration contractors. We bent a lot of NE WP and some Hond Mah and we had a steam chamber that was very helpful. I'd have to say that 100% of our bends ran the grain long. We mixed waterproof brown powder so it was easy to set the viscosity and cure time.
A major ship builder near me used miles and miles of Hoover laminated wood fire retardant scaffolding. The scaffolding was load bearing. My memory is that all of the plys ran long. There was no loss of lateral or longitudinal integrity. My point, of course, is that laminated products which lay up parallel grain components are suitably strong. It would seem that post-formed components layed up with their grain running parallel would be more than suitable for these bridge racks. Even if Martin went from a 3 ply to a 5 ply build, things should work well. We always felt that glue was stronger than wood. Please share your thoughts.
Best regards,
BOXCAR