I like to steam the kayak ribs first thing in the morning to leave plenty of time for tying on the stringers and the keel in the afternoon.
The steam box I’m using here is a simple plywood box made of two pieces of half-inch screwed into some 3/4 x 1 5/8” tall pieces to create a narrow space for the ribs to sit in and the steam to accumulate.
Every different species of wood and even different boards of the same species will bend a little bit different so I don’t pay much attention to recommended steaming times. The biggest mistake that most people make is steaming for too long, causing the wood to get brittle. My ribs are usually in the box for anywhere from 4 to 8 minutes, adjusting the timing on the fly based on how thing are bending.
By loading at one minute intervals all I have to do is load as many ribs as the time in minutes I want them to steam for and then bend and replace a rib every minute. After setup time the whole process takes about 20 minutes start to finish, with about another 45 minutes of fussing and trimming and pegging some of the ribs in place.
Bending the correct shape by eye might seem intimidating, but most of my students report that it was much easier than they thought it would be. All sorts of special jigs and complicated forms can be employed to coax poor quality wood into steam bending, but for my money paying the price for a premium bending oak is well worth not dealing with all that hassle.
Build time on this step: 3 hours
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