Bend It Like Gumby | Michael Fortune

Changing wood from straight lines to curved adds a whole new dimension to woodworking; learn both the practical how-to and the design impact of bending wood in this 5-day hands-on class.

You will learn how to do a variety of bending techniques such as steam bend, laminate bend, hot pipe bend, coopering, kerf bending and vacuum form.

We’ll work on multiple small hands-on exercises to give you practical experience of the processes.  The key learnings you’ll take away with you include:

• Making laminates with the bandsaw
• Creating and using bending forms
• Vacuum bag clamping
• Steam Bending
• Jointing and planning curved parts
• Clamping strategies
• Milling curved parts safely

We will explore how repeated shapes and curved surfaces impact your furniture designs and explore other areas – such as mixing different species.  If time allows we’ll touch on additional methods such as coppering but the goal will be to build a strong base of knowledge that you can leverage off of for your projects at home.

Be prepared to take your work and skills up a notch.