The endcap was glued onto the tube yesterday, so now I have a 5' long tube that I can fill with water to soak the board in. I just need to find a place to stand it up and fill it with water. But first I have to figure out how to secure the board to the form and also how to keep the board submerged in the water while it soaks.

I am going to bolt the board to the form with the machine screw I put into it, but I don't want to have to take the bolt out to do that, so I will cut a slot in the hoop board so I can slip it over the bolt and then tighten it down.

I drilled a 1/4" hole in the board to fit the bolt.

1/4" Bolt Hole

Then I cut the slot in the board to the hole.

The Slot

The bolt goes into the slot like this. Since it is a slot in the board, I can take the wet board and just slip it over the bolt without having to unscrew the bolt and remove it from the form. And more important, after the board is bent and wrapped around the form, I should be able to just loosen the bolt and slide the board off of it. If there is just a through-hole in the board, it might be difficult to remove after the board is wrapped up on top of itself.

Bolt In The Slot

I bolted the board to the form with the form clamped in the vise to see how it looks. It looks like this:

Board Clamped Bolted Down and Clamped

Wow. That's a lot of board. Here is a closeup of how the board slides onto the bolt and gets secured.

The Board is Bolted to the Form

Now I need to soak the board in the water. Since the wood will float, I drilled a small hole in the bottom of it and tied a piece of lead to the bottom of it.

Lead Weight

That lead is some kind of flashing material that I found lying around at the other house and decided to keep it. I have no idea why I wanted to keep it, but I did, and now it is being useful. Go figure.

However, it proved to be inadequate for keeping the entire board submerged in the water, so I had to add another piece of lead, which has the same back story as the first piece... which makes it even more mysterious why I would want to keep two of these things.

I Added a Second Weight to the Board

I finally got the board to sink in the tube. I filled the tube outside and left it there to avoid the possibility of it falling over and flooding the basement. If it falls over out here, it just waters the garden.

I Propped the Board Up by the Back Door

I drilled a couple of holes in the top of the tube and tied a rope through them to help me move this thing around. It is somewhat heavy when full of water. Water weighs about 62 pounds per cubic foot, and I have about 4.5 linear feet of the stuff in that tube. So, here are the calculations:

The diameter of the tube is 4", so the radius is 2"
The formula for the area is π X r²
r = 2" or 0.166666666667 feet.
r² = 0.0277777777778 square feet.
π X r² = 0.0872664625997 square feet.
The volume is the length times area = 4.5 X 0.0872664625997 = 0.392699081699 cubic feet.
Multiply the volume times the weight of water 0.392699081699 X 62 = 24.3473430653

So if you add in the weight of the tube, the whole thing weighs 25 to 30 pounds.

Hmmm. Not as bad as it feels like when I move it. I must be getting old.

Here is the wood soaking in the water.

Looking Down Into the Tube

It's kind of hard to see the wood down in there. Here is a closer view.

You Can See the Wood Soaking in the Tube

OK. Now I will let it soak over night and bend it tomorrow. It should be nice and wet by then.