I have been out of business on this project for another month again. Time flies. But I have some time to work on it now. When I left it, I had rebuilt my bending form to make it horizontal so that I can bend steamed wood around it. Now I need to make a steamer of some sort.
I have read online that people have made steam tubes out of PVC pipe. They say that it is cheap and readily available and works fine. I also just happen to have the other half of the pipe that I used to make the soaking tube a few months ago. So this is a match made in Heaven.
The half of the tube that I am going to use is 5 feet long, which is plenty long to take my 4 foot bending boards. I just need to cap the ends and add a supply of steam.
Unfortunately when I looked at the end of the tube I noticed that the guys at the Big Box store did a really lousy job of cutting the pipe in half. Look at this.
Very Crooked End of Pipe
What a hack job! If I am going to put a stopper in that end I need to square it up first. Here is the other end of the pipe, cut at the factory.
Straight Factory Cut End
I set the tube up on my workbench and then I clamped my try square to the bench. The square should allow me to mark a square end on the pipe.
I Clamped the Square to the Bench
I put the crooked end of the pipe up next to the vertical try square to see if I can square it up. You can see how crooked the cut is.
How Crooked It Is!
I held a pencil next to the vertical ruler and spun the pipe around to make a mark all around the pipe. If you look at the photo above, the one of the pipe sitting on the bench, you can see that I have pushed the square end of the pipe up against my tool shelf. That way, when I spin the pipe around it will not move relative to the clamped try square. When I mark it with the pencil it should make a square end.
Marking the Square Pipe End
So, I spun the pipe around against the pencil and here is the mark where I have to cut the pipe.
All Marked
I got out my utility saw and cut through the pipe.
Sawing Through the Pipe
By the way, this plastic stuff really stinks when you are cutting it. Pew. Give it a try:
Ha! Gotcha. Probably smells like a computer screen.
OK. Enough of that. Here is the end that I just cut off. Nice and square.
The End is Now Square
I also have to make a hole to put the steam into the pipe through. I bought a wallpaper steamer online for about 50 bucks. It has a connector that screws into a plate with a handle. I will just make a hole in the pipe and stuff the connector into the hole. It doesn't have to seal, so this will not be a precision hole. In fact, it is better not to seal up the pipe so that the steam can move through it.
The fixture on the steamer hose is about 1" across, so I took my 1" spade bit to drill the hole in the plastic pipe.
Drilling With a Spade Bit
Wow. That's a nasty, jagged hole. Drilling this stuff is not easy. I have to clean it up with my rattail file.
Rattail
Here is a closeup of the nasty hole so you can see how jagged it is. Not my finest work.
Closeup of the Nasty Hole
Ugly ugly ugly. Oh well. The hose fits in the hole.
Steamer Hose in the Hole
That is all for today. Next time I have to figure out how to stop up the ends so that I can capture the steam inside of the tube.
