Shelter Island Boat Works

After milling the locust frames they needed to be steam bent to follow the curve of the hull. I built a steam box from scrap 3/4″ plywood. It was sized to accommodate 48″ stock. I built the volume a little big thinking I might need it for other larger tasks. Mistake. Keeping the volume of the box small helps to accelerate the steaming process. As it turned out, the time it took to steam the 1/2″ x 3/4″ locust (48″ long) was far too long. It exhausted the water in the tank too quickly. I had to fill it occasionally while steaming. This caused the water in the tank to cool which took much more time than it should. Lesson learned.

1/4″ dowels to support the stock. Weather stripping to seal the door.

A small 2 gallon commercial steamer connected to a 1″ tube and inserted at the lower rear of the box.

A meat thermometer and clamp latch. Box was tilted to allow condensed water to drain from a small hole at the bottom. A small 1/4″ vent hole was drilled at the top near the door to allow excess steam to escape.

It worked fine and did eventually steam the stock. I just needed to steam the frames quite a bit longer than if I had used a smaller box. Took about 1 hour when it should have taken 20 minutes.

The frames became quite limber and easily conformed to the hull.