EL Wire Spiderweb

Step 3 Steam bend wood

Now that the frame is built, it needed to be covered.  I bought some cherry plywood from a local lumberyard, and cut strips the same width as my frame.  Since plywood won't bend nearly far enough to fit in the arch, I had to steam it.

Odd as it sounds, the dishwasher makes an awesome wood steamer if your piece is small enough to fit in there.  The process for steaming wood is fairly straightforward.

1.  Put wood on the bottom rack, and set the dishwasher to the light-wash setting.  Make sure heated dry is turned OFF!

2.  The second the wash finishes, take the piece out.  Don't stick your face in the door as you open it, there's a lot of steam and steam hurts.

3.  Bend the piece.  If you can get it far enough to fit on the frame, great.  If not just bend it by hand.  If you did manage to get it clamped to the frame, only leave it on there for 5-10 minutes.

4.  Put the piece back in the dishwasher for another spin.  You can use the pins to partially hold your bend.

Repeat these steps until you've got the bend you want.  It pays not to rush these steps, lest you crack the wood.  I put both sides through 4 washes each before I was satisfied with the results.

Once it's done, use wood glue and clamps to attach the inner piece to the frame.  I left the outer piece off till the end to allow me to run my wires.  At this step, I also drilled the holes that the EL wire would later run through.