Summer 2024
September 9-14

Introducing curved elements in your work expands the vocabulary of forms available for your designs. One of the strongest and most repeatable ways to produce curves in wood is bent lamination.

This six-day course will give you all the skills you need to confidently create bent laminated curved parts for your own projects. You will learn pattern and form making, selecting and processing materials, the appropriate glues, methods of clamping, final milling, and laying out joinery. Students will design their own curved part, build a form for it, and create their first bent part or two with guidance from instructor Matthew Straughn-Morse.

In this six-day course, we will begin by studying the properties of wood that allow for a successful bent lamination including species, grain, and thickness of parts. Matthew will demonstrate how to create your thin laminates from solid wood by resawing. You will have an opportunity to draw a piece of furniture or other object with a curve, learn how to translate that into an accurate pattern, and then use that to produce a bending form. Matthew will show you many ways to create forms, each suited to different types of curves and clamping strategies. Clamped forms, internal and external vacuum bag forms, and more free-form bending with innertube clamps will be covered. You will learn methods for bending both narrow parts, like those used in a rocking chair, and wider panels like those used for chair seats or backs. Finally, you will learn how to clean up and mill your curved parts and accurately layout joinery on them.

Matthew is an accomplished and creative designer who will guide you through drawing a piece of furniture, an object or just a curve that you’d like to use for practice. With his guidance you will turn that curve into a pattern, then a form, and then cut laminates which you will bend and glue up on the form.

This class will give you all the skills you need to successfully create bent laminated curves on your own.

Topics include:

• Understanding how to choose and size wood for lamination

• How to cut laminates by resawing from solid wood

• Making patterns and building forms

• Multiple clamping strategies including clamped forms, vacuum bags, and inner tubes

• Panel bending

• Use of veneers and bending plywood

• Appropriate glues

• Controlling springback

• Final milling of curved parts

• Joinery layout on curves

Tools

Required Equipment:

• Safety gear - dust mask, ear protection and safety glasses

• .5mm mechanical pencil

• Eraser

Recommended Equipment:

• 6” ruler

• 6” double or adjustable square

• 16’ tape measure

Prerequisites

Some skills required. Students must have basic familiarity with the following stationary tools: table saw, thickness planer, joiner, and bandsaw.

Class Information and Registration

Class runs from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm Monday through Saturday in Building 304 at Fort Worden. Map
Please read our What to Expect page for general information about the school.
Please also read our Registration Policy, and sign up for the waitlist if the course is full.

Class size: 8
Cost: $1,075
Materials Charge: $100