To start making my box, I cut four 120cm x 15cm x 4cm pieces of fencing barge board using a circular saw. (I did not have to worry about the finish of the wood or how it all looked as all of this was purely for testing purposes).

Next, I joined the 4 pieces of wood together using basic butt joints. When joining the pieces together, I would clamp the two pieces in place so that their edges were flush with one another, running a thin line of wood glue down the edge of one of the pieces to try and prevent steam from escaping during the steaming process. Whilst the pieces were clamped up I drilled pilot holes roughly every 30cm and then screwed the two pieces together to fix them in place. I would then rotate the piece and repeat it until I had a long square tube.

Next, I had to create a method of delivering the steam to the box.  To do this, I cut a 13cm x 13cm x 4cm piece of wood to cover the back end of the block. With this, I then had to create a hole to deliver the steam through. I measured the diameter of the pipe I was going to use and drilled a hole through the centre of the piece.

My next step was to attach the base to the square tube. I did this by coating all four edges in wood glue and pushing it into the tube and once it was flush with the edges, I drilled pilot holes through and screwed the back in tight.

After that, I marked out and drilled holes every 30cm down the tube at a height of 2cm from the floor. I used a 10mm drill bit to make holes for my dowels.

I then sanded three 10mm diameter dowels so that they would have slightly pointed ends (in order to make it easier to get the dowels through the second drill hole). I then pushed them through the holes and sawed the ends flush with the sides of the box. This gave me a simple rack on which to place the wood I was steaming so that it could be raised from the floor; thus allowing all sides to absorb the heat from the steam.

The next thing I had to do was create a drip hole so that I could use to drain the box of condensation. To take care of the condensation issue, I drilled a 0.5mm diameter hole at the very back of the box and ensured that every time I was steaming, I would leave the box at a slight tilt  so that all of the water could run to the back and exit the container in a controlled manner so that I could collect it in a bucket, and reduce mess.

After this, all that was left to complete my steam box was to create an air tight lid that could easily be fitted and removed during the steaming process. To start off with, I cut a 13cm x 13cm x 4cm piece of fencing barge board which would just about fit into the open hole. I then screwed a larger 18cm x 22cm x 4cm piece on top of that so that the smaller piece of wood would slot in whilst there would still be an overhanging lip I could use to pull the door off.

Now that I had created the steam box, I was able to start practicing wood bending. Because of the size I had made the box, I was now able to steam pieces of wood with dimensions up to 110cm x 12cm x 9cm.

In order to produce the steam, I used a wallpaper steamer connected to the back of the box to constantly boil water and deliver a constant supply of steam to the box. Before bending the wood, I ran the steamer and watched to see where steam was escaping. I then filled in these gaps to make it as efficient as possible.

Now that I had my steam box all set up, I was ready to practice steam bending. I firstly selected some pieces that I wished to bend. I wanted to test if the size of the piece and type of wood affected how easy it was to bend. To start, I filled up the wallpaper steamer and plugged it into the steam box. I then placed a bucket under the drip hole and left the system running so that the box would fill up in preparation for the wood.

In preparation for the bend, I decided to soak my wood in a bath overnight to ensure that the wood had soaked up all the water it could, hopefully allowing heat to be transferred more easily to it when in the steamer. Now that I had my soaked wood, I left the steamer running and placed the wood in the steam box. I left the wood to steam for 2hours and set up my form that I wished to bend round.

When it was time to take the wood out to attempt the bend, I put on thick rubber gloves to allow me to handle the heat of the steam and asked my dad to help me quickly clamp the wood to the form as there is a small window of time at which the wood can be manipulated before hardening. I took the door off the steamer and quickly clamped it around my form as tight a curve as i could get. I then left it for 2 days to stiffen.

After the two days, I  returned to my wood to find that it had adopted the shape of the form (with a bit of spring-back). This kind of curve would not have been possible without the preliminary soaking and steaming. From this, I learnt that when making a form,I would need to bend the wood around a tighter curve than I would want to accommodate for spring-back. I was also able to learn that I need to be careful when attaching my clamps so i do not damage or dent the wood.