I am tired of using a pot of water and tin foil to steam my wood. I use dry heat as well buy sometimes steam works best. I am not the best at finding stuff on the internet and want to build a steamer of either wood design or maybe PVC. I know that someone has a kit that they sell and may go that route. Otherwise, I was looking at using a Wagner wallpaper steamer.

So, was curious of pro's and con's of wood boxes versus the PVC. What do you prefer and why? Thanks for any info. Jerry

the boatyard near me steams and bends big timbers and they use a row of old hot water heater s cut in 1/2 length ways and welded together and charcoal fire under to heat and rods over to hold the tembers

once steamed they are bent using a floor with holes and pegs to bend and hold while cooling sometimes done multipule of times to get the bend and shape they want

I use a Rockler steam bending kit for my working recurves and static recurves. I place the bow in 4-inch, schedule 40, pvc pipe supported in a wooden cradle. I do one limb at a time and wrap rags around the bow to seal off the pipe opening. The other end of the pvc pipe is capped. I’ve done over 50 recurves with this kit and it’s still going strong. Good luck Jerry.

Here’s a photo of my steamer setup

that's pretty simple Bill

I use that same steam generator with a cedar box instead of the plastic pipe. Been really happy with the results.

how big of a box?

Mine is 5"X5" by 4 foot long. I think if I went any bigger I'd hook up 2 steam generators. They aren't stupid expensive, at least they weren't when I got mine.

That steam generator looks similar to a wallpaper steamer.

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