Reply To: Cross grain moulding
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I should start by saying if this is a treasured family heirloom, you should probably take it to a professional furniture restoration business, not experiment on it.
But if you’re set on proceeding yourself, I do think making your own molding plane with that profile is a very good idea. You’d then be able to make perfect molding, dead straight, and even better, if the chair sustained further damage to the molding some years down the road, you could then always make more to fix the damage, and more molding planes are always a Good Thing 🙂 maybe you’d use the profile in future pieces. Also, if your ancestors built it, it’s appropriate that you also build some part of it, to continue the tradition.
I’ll say steaming has a risk. When you steam already-finished wood, sometimes the finish cam partially leech out, and usually in a very uneven way. The result is horribly ugly half-finished, blotchy wood, and it’s very difficult to get it to look even ever again. If you had a test piece I’d say test it, but obviously there are no 200 year-old test pieces (right?). If you’re going to sand the moldings down to bare wood and re-finish, then this isn’t a concern.
If steaming is too much of a risk you could try dry heat. There are youtube videos showing how to use cheapie propane torch (like this: https://www.amazon.com/Bernzomatic-TS3000T-Quickfire-Self-Igniting-Torch/dp/B00008ZA0B) and heat the inside of a pipe or empty metal can clamped in a vise. Just leave the torch on, continually heating the can while you work. Press the piece firmly against the pipe / can / whatever, and it’ll quickly get hot enough to where it’ll bend. Don’t press the show side in case of burns, but the heat might still damage the show side, FYI. Get it close to straight, then quickly clamp it to a perfectly straight surface that is very strong before it cools. If you’re going to use hide glue, you need this extra step (clamping to a straight surface to straighten the wood after heat as opposed to clamping and glueing to the piece itself) because the level of heat needed to bend wood will undo hide glue. Once it’s cooled, prep everything for the glue-up to the chair, and take the molding from the clamps and back into the glue-up clamps as quickly as you can, because the piece will spring back a bit once it’s out of the clamps, so don’t give it the time to warp even a little bit.
You may need to gap fill with epoxy or other pigmented wood filler. Epoxy can stand the heat needed to bend wood, not sure about commercial wood filler products.
Just some thoughts — best of luck, and keep us posted with the results!