bending wood

Bending wood was starting to seem almost impossible until I found the easy answer!
I was even all set to try and build a bending jig, complete with dangerous hot pipe and all. Then I thought I would try using a hair curling iron (a suggestion I found online) and in trying it I realized the curling iron wasn't doing much, but the wood was bending just because you could force it to. That's because I had picked a really bendy wood - pine lath from the home improvement store. If you get it good and wet - spray it down for a couple of hours or soak it overnight - you can bend it by hand. You have to be careful not to force it too much or the grain may separate on top. But you can get some nice gentle curves without fancy equipment, in keeping with the microluthery philosophy.
So the secret is picking wood that really wants to cooperate. I wouldn't try this with poplar, for instance.
Then you have to let it dry with the curve in place. You can tie the ends together with string - this works well with teardrop shapes - or you can make a simple bending jig to dry it on (see next post).