CONSTRUCTION TIPS

CONSTRUCTION TIPS NO1
Building a CANOPY BEND (possibly in USA known as a hood bend).

In days of yore, canopy bends would have been made in best American or English ash and a steam chest and former used to make it from one solid piece of ash. These days it is difficult to find steam chests.
To make a canopy bend the first job is to make a template of the curve required. Then this is transferred to plywood. Wooden blocks, as seen here, or steel angle sections can be screwed to the plywood up to the carefully drawn line.

Thin long laminations of ash, no thicker than ¼" or about 5mm, are then laid on top of each other with a generous
sandwich of glue. These layers are built up to the desired thickness.

It is important to make the rail wider than required as there will be undulations that occur at clamping stage which
cannot be removed.

The whole glued piece is then transferred to the pattern/former and clamped to it using many G-clamps. About 30 clamps will be needed for the average rail.

Remember to put a generous layer of wax on the former to prevent the laminations
from sticking to the former/plywood. Leave for a couple of days and then knock it out to make the one for the other end. Machine-plane the edges down to get a perfect finish.
Experience has shown not to nail each layer down, rather leave it to the glue to do the job.
Further advice if anyone is interested, please send an email.