Bent Lamination SHORTCUT

In past projects, I have used bent lamination and always wished there was an easier way. Buying the wood the correct size is out of the question for me, and the amount of labor and sawdust that is involved is enough to discourage this technique most of the time.

I recently found the solution to this problem, it is cheap, approachable with a simple jig, and eliminates about 88% of the work involved. The answer is to find wood that is already the perfect size that is used for something else, and steal it for bent lamination. In this case- WOODEN BLINDS!!!

In this instructable, I'll show you how to side-step the hardest part of bent lamination and get right to the results.

Solid Wood Blinds

Planer

Rasp, File or Sandpaper

Melamine

Screws or Nails

Wax (Paste Wax or Paraffin)

Wood Glue or Epoxy

Notched trowel or Glue Roller

Bending Form (Make a good one)

Clamps (You need all the clamps)

This is where all bent lamination dreams come to die. When a regular DIY’er looks at what is needed/involved in bent lamination, one of two things happen: they immediately give up – or think they might be able to pull it off…and slam into many, many booby traps:

• Wood. You need a lot of wood. This stuff is expensive and (apparently) doesn’t just grow on trees anymore.
• Tablesaw. You need a tablesaw at the very least. This will create a lot of wasted material and you may need to sharpen your blade once or twice (or buy a new one). For every laminate you cut, one potential laminate will become saw dust.
• Don’t have a tablesaw? How about a bandsaw? If you have a PHD in bandsaw set-up and a few sharp blades, this could work…
• Jointer. Remember the bandsaw? PHD level? You will still need to clean up the cut left behind so you have a smooth surface for the next cut.
• Planer. This is usually how you get the laminates to their final thickness. There is a steep learning curve here, and that is where we are going to focus.
• Drum sander. This can be used in place of a planer to get the laminates to their final thickness.
• Bending form. You need to build a really good bending form, like these ones!
• Clamps, you need ALL the clamps

Do you want to side-step most of this work? Go to the thrift store like Macklemore and pick up some wooden blinds. Don't be fooled and pick up faux blinds, they need to be solid wooden blinds (look for end grain). Most people are ditching the wooden blinds for the white PVC type these days. The pair that I picked up were in a box that said "faux" but they clearly replaced them and put the old wooden blinds in the newer box.

This discovery was earth shattering to me. I can't understate this enough. These pair of blinds cost me $20. You can't buy two sticks of that dimension with shipping for the same price. I only used one set of blinds to get started and it is more than enough. I have a sneaking suspicion that you could buy brand new wooden blinds or a "refill pack" if you had to and the price would still be a lot cheaper than making your own laminates or shopping around for laminates at wood distributors. Cut off the strings keeping the blinds together and VOILA- dozens of laminates that are exactly the size you need- some may even have some really nice grain pattern.

Aside from using wooden blinds to cut out 88% of the work in bent lamination, this jig is the most important part of the process.

In between my table saw and planer sits a small, "L" shaped piece of wood. It's not a pretty thing, if you want to see a pretty thing go look at my whales. This is just melamine shelf material that someone was going to throw away. It's made out of chipboard for crying out loud, something I dislike very much. The funny thing is a jig doesn't have to be pretty to get the job done.

The important thing to consider when making this- it should be dead flat, and have a smooth surface. That is the most important component. Mine is as wide as my planer and long enough to rest on top of the infeed and outfeed tables. The lip on the front prevents it from being pulled through while in use.

This is a rare case where it is actually in your favor to have a smaller "lunch-box" style planer. The infeed and outfeed rollers are close to the cutter blades, and this prevents the super thin wood from getting ruined. These planers are not meant to cut super thin, so the jig raises the material up closer to the blades, and provides a slippery-smooth surface for the wood to glide on.

In less than five minutes you can make this jig, and throw a little wax on it to make it extra slippery. You won't regret it.

Why is my cat in this section? Because my cat is going to teach you how to read the grain in wood, and you'll never forget the lesson and know how to "read the grain."

Do you know how to pet a cat? If you don't- let me explain: you start at the top of the head and pet DOWNHILL- smoothing the cat hair as you go. If you pet a cat the wrong way- starting from the tail and going up-hill: that cat is going to BITE YOU because you will be lifting the hairs, tugging in the wrong direction- and cat's don't appreciate that.

Cutting wood is the same way, pretend a piece of wood is a pile of straws or broom-sticks stuck together with glue. When you cut with the grain, you follow the fibers of the wood, and they cut off cleanly. If you cut the wrong way, you are essentially lifting up those fibers and ripping them instead of cutting them. It's kinds of like a 3D puzzle. Here is a little hint: when you see the "Cathedral" pattern in woodgrain, the tips of the cathedrals are pointing the direction you should be cutting. So if you are using a plane, you would push the cutter in that direction. If you are using a tool with a spinning set of blades, it's often reversed to cut with the grain.

Because wooden blinds are already pretty thin, you only want to plane the finish off the wood so it is ready to glue. By looking at the grain ahead of time, you can greatly reduce the amount of tear-out you will get on a board. Sometimes the grain changes direction half-way through a board, and you have to live with it, or change your technique.

Now that you have looked at the grain, and you know which direction it needs to go into the planer, it's time to add a little RAMP to the edge of the wood.

This gentle slope will prevent the blades from lifting the thin board and bashing it to pieces. The ramp will get the cut started and keep everything lined up perfectly.

You could be doing everything else perfect, and still have problems if you don't create this little ramp. It's that important- it get's it's own section and THREE close up photos. Use a rasp, file, or sandpaper to create the little ramp at the ends of the board where it will go into the planer.

This is where the rubber meets the road or the blade meets the wood. Set your jig in place on your planer and get the laminates ready to go. There is some technique involved in this to make it work well with as little (or no) snipe possible.

Take the laminate and push it down where it enters the planer, lift up on the back end- creating more downward pressure at the front. Make sure the ramp is pointing in the right direction when it enters the planer. Skew the wood slightly sideways so you are making contact on a corner instead of the full length of wood when it first starts cutting. Push it through until it is almost all the way through and move to the back side of the planer and catch the board as it comes out, lifting up and pushing down in the same way when the board went in the planer. This will prevent the wood from lifting up and getting cut too deep at the end when it no longer makes contact with the front roller.

Of the 43 laminates I cut, 30 of them went through without any problems- getting cut once on each side. 9 of the laminates had to go through a third time to get all the finish off, so they are a little bit thinner. 2 laminates had some pretty significant tear out, but can still be used. The last 2 splintered enough that they broke in half and are not really usable.

I am making a rocking chair, so I need enough laminates for the 2 rockers, and 7 or 8 laminated back braces. One thing I did differently this time was to rub a little bit of wax on the edges of the laminates. This made the hardened glue much easier to scrape off when it was time to clean them up.

My 'ible on bent lamination goes into more detail as far as what is needed to succeed when it comes to preparing and gluing bent lamination, and now that the wood preparation is ten times easier, I think I'll incorporate it into many more projects.

Find some old wooden blinds and give it a go! If you were going to paint your project, you could skip the planing entirely and just use epoxy to glue the laminates together.