Bending wood cladding - thoughts please

[Pickup]

Hi,

Designing a shed / potting shed / summer house and the client (my wife ) would like a curved wall on one side. The curve will be fairly uniform along the length (about 10' (3m)) of the shed and the offset from the ends of the boards will be about 8-12" (20-30 cm)

We haven't decided on a material yet.

Most of the info I've found so far relates to bending quite sharp curves in short pieces of wood.

Does anyone know if pre-cut profiled cladding will be flexible enough if soaked (hot water?) or steamed or should I be thinking about sourcing some green timber (variety?)?

ANY constructive (no pun intended) comments appreciated.

Thanks

 

[Chud]

Unless I'm misunderstanding your post I don't think bending the ends of a cladding strip 1ft relative to the middle over a 10 foot length will need any steam or water unless the cladding is pretty thick..? Most cladding I can think of would deflect more than this from gravity if you picked up a plank in the middle.

 

[Tigercubrider]

never done it but from watching tv and chatting to a guy…..

a bit of plastic pipe to use as a steamer, lagged with rags, and a wallpaper steamer as the heat source.

if the curve is uniform then making a jig to insert the wood while it cooled down might help

 

[bobsuerita]

or vertical clad it
http://www.mortlock.com.au/curved-vertical-wall-cladding/

 

[Deleted member 174758]

Most softwoods up to about 1in can simply be bent round a framework and nailed in place (ring nails preferred). No need to steam bend at all on 1ft in 10
feet.

 

[foxhole]

Use ribbed mdf instead, designed to bend

 

[Pickup]

Use ribbed mdf instead, designed to bend

MDF isn't good in the wet tho'

 

[foxhole]

MDF isn't good in the wet tho'

Assumed you meant on the inside?