The Pedal Gee Bee

Time Spent: 2 hours (est.)
Total Time: 18.25

Bending the fuselage was rather straightforward, and even kind of fun. I built two of the bending jigs as shown on the plans out of scrap wood I had in the bin. You could get away with building only one, but I wanted to bend both halves in one night. Do the bending work somewhere outside, like the garage floor or flat sidewalk, where you don’t have to worry about spillage and warping.

I started by getting the requisite weights (coffee cans filled with water) ready. Have an extra couple of containers of water on hand for the soaking process. Don’t be afraid of using a lot of water. Start by wetting the inside of the dado thoroughly. Thoroughly wet a rag, place it in the dado and let it soak for around ten minutes. Then place the piece over the jig, with the wet rag between, making sure that the jig rests squarely against the aft shoulder of the dado. This insures that the bed is square to the dado, which will make the seatback assembly much easier.

Place another soaked rag flat over the top of the joint, and steam the area repeatedly. When the rag starts to dry out or tarnish, immediately re-wet with the extra water you have on hand. At first, you won’t see much bending happening, and you’ll wonder what you’re doing wrong. However, if you keep steaming the joint, and don’t let it dry out, after about 10 minutes you’ll see the piece begin to bend. It’ll happen slowly at first, but the last three inches of bend will only take about a minute. The instructions said to switch to “drying” the joint when it gets close to the ground, but I steamed that puppy the entire time until it touched. I wanted to have a completely smooth bend, and I figured the extra steaming time didn’t hurt anything. Anyway, when you want to dry the bend, simply remove the rags from above and below the joint and pass the iron across the piece on a dry setting. Don’t stop moving the iron, or you’ll scorch the wood. After the joint becomes dry to the touch, move the piece and jig to a place where it can sit overnight. Leave the piece on the jig.