Bend round plywood. How to bend plywood at home: proven methods

The usefulness of a material can be determined based on three basic components:

Minimum costs for installation, taking into account the maximum area to be covered;
The price of the material itself;
Multifunctionality of the material. This also includes the possibility of full use of products, provided that they are given a non-standard, for example, bent shape.

Plywood meets all these parameters. In addition to its main purpose, lining horizontal surfaces, it can perfectly bend and be used in the construction of so-called “blown” or curved forms. But this instruction will tell you how to do it.

Each layer has its own approach

In fact, of course, the solution to the question of how to bend plywood is not calculated with precision down to the layer, but there is still a certain amount of truth in the title of the chapter. Let us explain: there are a number of difficulties when bending plywood, which are associated specifically with the structure of the material, as well as with technological features bending process.

Namely:

The thinner the plywood, the easier it is to work with. However, for the sake of objectivity, we must also take into account the fact that to construct, for example, arches, the plywood must be at least 10 mm thick, that is, you already need to bend a fairly serious puff paste (see also article);
Initially, the veneer layers are located under different angles to each other precisely in order to increase the resistance of the material to bending;
In workshops and special workshops, bending and the required curvature are achieved quite simply: the part is practically saturated with steam and then comes under the influence of a kind of vice, which bends it to the required radius of curvature.

Interesting to know! At home, you can also steam impregnate a small piece of plywood. For these purposes, you can use boiling water that turns into steam in a saucepan or kettle. Some craftsmen solve the problem of how to bend plywood using irons with a steam mode.

All this is real, but there are two points that need to be taken into account:

First, wood cools very quickly, this equally applies to plywood;
Secondly, it is very difficult to achieve uniform heating of the entire part, so this type suitable for small pieces with curves, most likely for the production of curved surfaces of furniture or other small products.

How to bend

So, how to bend plywood without unnecessary hassle?

There are two main technologies:

Ferry, (which has already been described);
In the bathroom with hot water.

The second technology is much simpler; it allows you to calmly place the required fragment in a bathtub or other sufficiently large container and leave it in hot water for half an hour. The effect will be guaranteed, since the wood veneer softens under the influence of water and temperature, and the plywood part acquires the necessary elasticity.

Advice! Plywood, there is plywood, there is a very high probability of delamination of the material during prolonged contact with hot water. IN in this case We invite you to become an experimenter for a while.

Take a strip of plywood required thickness and soak it in the bath. Check the condition of the fragment every 5 minutes for bending; if after a certain time (within half an hour) the fragment bends normally, then this time is enough to soak the entire working fragment.

The softened part can be installed in a stationary place, attached with self-tapping screws and left until completely dry, this is if you are making a false column, a simple arch or other part that does not require additional complex structural inserts.

A few words about complex structures

Bending is a delicate matter.

Arch is different from arch, just like a curved design is different from another curved design. Often, home craftsmen resort to complex, combined solutions using overlay ornaments and other decorative elements. In this case, the entire structure is assembled into a single ensemble, and only then it is mounted and strengthened in a permanent place.

Note! In this case, a lot depends on the bend angle. If this angle is very small, then in order to achieve it you will have to make several approaches.

The material is soaked, bent as far as possible, then left to dry completely. Then everything is repeated again until the part acquires the intended curvature.

There are several basic technologies securing the workpieces after soaking.

We will not repeat them all; we will focus only on the one that we consider the most acceptable for the following reasons:

If you do not install the workpiece immediately in a stationary place, then you need an accurate, even bend and a combined solution;
The maximum winning result can only be ensured by a pre-prepared blank or template;
Fixing on the template is guaranteed to save you from the need to redo or correct the part.

In this case, we are talking specifically about fixing the fragment on the template until it dries completely. Making the template itself is quite simple; by the way, there are also a lot of manufacturing options.

Here is one of them:

Take wooden slats length equal to length details;
Cut out several fragments from chipboard or wood (from 3 or more, depending on the length of the plywood sheet to be bent) and attach them to the slats;
Attach the plywood layer to the finished frame with self-tapping screws and leave until completely dry.

About working with large sheets

Sometimes it becomes necessary to bend a large sheet of plywood with your own hands. This occurs when designing an arched vault of considerable length or another similar shape.

In this case, do the following:

Using a wood cutter, cuts are made to the last layer, but without damaging this layer (otherwise, you will simply ruin the workpiece);
The number of cuts is determined by the radius of curvature; the smaller it is, the more cuts there are;
The sheet is placed on the template and fixed, while the voids are not filled, but glued; PVA glue is quite suitable (find out here).

Finally

It’s quite simple to bend plywood, a little patience and skills - and everything will work out (read also the article). The video in this article is ready to present you with its report on the topic.

Similar materials

Methods for bending plywood that can be used at home. You can give the desired bend to almost all types of plywood different thicknesses.

Plywood is used in construction and furniture production. When it becomes necessary to bend plywood parts, you can use several methods: use flexible plywood, contact a specialized company, or bend the part yourself.

Flexible plywood can be purchased at construction supermarkets. She doesn't large thickness(3-4 mm) and is suitable for constructing arches. Cut out the part to the required size and attach it to the frame with screws. Flexible plywood made in China is on sale - this is optimal combination prices and quality.

To create more rigid bent structures, steaming, notching, gluing and combinations of these methods are used.

Steaming

In industrial processing, steaming is carried out using special installations and the necessary bending is carried out using a press. At home, a sheet of plywood can be steamed over containers of boiling water or an iron with an uninterrupted steam supply.

You can also simply wet a sheet or part in water (in the bathroom, for example). The soaking time depends on the thickness of the sheet and the direction of bending. For bakelite plywood it is less than for bakelite plywood. Below is a table for calculating the time for boiling plywood at a temperature of 90 - 100 C.

At home, it is quite difficult to ensure the boiling of sheets or parts: there is no container of the required size, and it is quite expensive to maintain the boiling temperature for several hours. An alternative to boiling at home is soaking in warm or cold water:

for soaking at a water temperature of 60C, the time increases by 1.5 - 2 times
for soaking at a temperature of 15-30C 15-20 times.

After soaking, the part is attached to the template, fixed and kept until completely dry. The greatest permissible bending after steaming or soaking is possible when bending across the fibers. At home, it is better to combine steaming with humidification. Steam only the bend and moisturize upper layer veneer

Notching plywood

This method is used for bending sheets of plywood with a thickness of 16 to 22 mm. In the place of the intended bend, cuts are made with a milling cutter. The depth of the cut should not exceed half the thickness of the sheet and reach the veneer layer in the opposite direction, but not break it - the sheet may split. You can make cuts different widths How can we achieve that on one side of the plywood the angle will be different. In this way they bend plywood for the walls of a boat, for example.

The blank is clamped onto the mold and a sheet of veneer is glued on top. Drying time is about a day. For gluing, use PVA or epoxy glue. You can glue the part with the cuts inward and vice versa. In the second case, voids are formed. But they will not affect the rigidity of the part.

Gluing

To create a part curved shape it is cut out with a small tolerance (up to 5mm) from a thin sheet of plywood. The part (pattern) is laid out on the sheet so that the veneer directions alternate in finished product- this will provide greater rigidity and ductility of the part. Layers of plywood are glued together epoxy glue and clamped onto the workpiece to give shape with clamps for a day. After complete drying, the part is sanded and any rough edges and glue are removed.

To get the result quality part It is important to consider the following points:

The bend radius across the grain is much smaller than along it
Bent parts must be stored in a room with low air humidity (no more than 10%)
Steamed and soaked parts must be bent warm

For bending complex structures And large quantities bent parts It is worth contacting a company that processes wood and plywood. In their arsenal are powerful steam installations, designs for legend different forms and hot presses.

You can choose how to bend plywood from the suggested methods - they are simple enough to use at home. Provide the parts with appropriate humidity and wait until they dry completely. Use high-quality glue and fix the parts well.

It is hardly possible to dispute the fact that plywood is a practical and truly universal sheet material. It is successfully used both in the manufacture of furniture and when performing rough construction work or finishing. Plywood boards are valued for their high spatial strength, resistance to changes in humidity, and clear geometry.

Why do they bend plywood?

Sometimes we don't need a flat sheet, but a curved shape. Roundings instead of corners are often used in furniture production and in the decoration of premises, which allows you to make the interior softer, more pleasing to the eye, or, for example, less dangerous.

Curved plywood is very often used when it is necessary to make curved formwork (swimming pool bowl, porch steps, rounded concrete podium/pedestal, interfloor flight). monolithic staircase...). To create such formwork systems, it is often necessary to first bend the plywood, and only then make a shield out of it and install it in place.

Another interesting option applications bent plywood- formation of the arch in interior opening. As a rule, they usually try to make arches between rooms from plasterboard (special 6-mm or regular gypsum board) and encounter a lot of problems. But some experienced craftsmen prefer to use a plywood strip to create a vault, which has sufficient surface smoothness and strength so as not to use a perforated corner at the corners. By the way, plywood can be easily primed and puttied if necessary.

The principles of molding plywood with your own hands

We all know that plywood is radically different from solid edged lumber. This is sheet material, not piece material. It is “assembled” from thin wood veneer, which is oriented by fibers in different directions. There can be several layers of veneer (the thickness of the slab will vary accordingly), which are reliably glued together special compounds of various origins. It is mainly because of the characteristics of the glue that the plywood brands stand out: FSF, FK, etc.

Only by taking into account the general performance characteristics of plywood as a material and the properties of a specific sheet model can you choose a reasonable bending method and count on a positive result. Let's look at the main points you need to pay attention to:

1. Large bending radii can be obtained from plywood sheets even without any preliminary preparation.
2. What thinner slab, the steeper the “dry” bend can be, and the easier it is to perform the “forced” bend. That is why such a method appeared when a powerful curved product is produced by gluing together several strips of thin plywood. A thick sheet (from 20 mm) can be bent at home only by means of a notch.
3. When bending a strip or sheet, outer side The circle is always subject to tensile forces, and the inner radius is always subject to compressive forces. Therefore, the veneer may crack on the outside and wrinkle on the inside. To strengthen it before molding, a deep-penetrating primer is often used. It is very important to cut the sheet correctly before molding: it is better to have a margin in terms of dimensions so that it does not turn out that after bending the part turns out to be too small.
4. The slab is not equally malleable to forming in different directions. This depends on the predominant direction of the veneer fibers (determined by the direction of the fibers of the outer layers). It is much more difficult to bend plywood across the grain direction than along it. Accordingly, the conditions for starting molding must be maintained for a longer period of time. But it is also necessary to take into account that when bending across the direction of the fibers, the likelihood of the plywood breaking is much less, and the part will be somewhat more reliable.
5. To bend plywood (without using notches), the board must be moistened and heated, and this must be done evenly, without breaks or interruptions. Interestingly, these factors are interdependent: when the temperature decreases, the humidification time has to be increased, and vice versa. A good option- steam treatment.
6. Too much moisture and heating can lead to delamination of the veneer. That is, control of operating parameters is necessary, and it is advisable to periodically check the flexibility of the material as processing progresses. The problem is that products from different companies can differ greatly in properties, even if they are of the same brand. Before starting to work with a whole sheet, it is better to conduct a full-scale experiment on a test piece.
7. The tendency of plywood to bend after moistening greatly depends on the brand (namely, moisture resistance). So FC plywood can begin to bend after a simple short moistening, but it is more resistant to water FSF plywood You need to soak it longer and also heat it up.
8. Relatively thick plywood with little water absorption may not be able to be molded immediately - then it makes sense to let it cool and repeat the cycle.
9. Wet, scored or glued from thin sheets the part itself will not acquire the required shape - you need to use templates. The sheet must be fixed evenly and securely on the template.
10. If bent plywood blanks need gluing, then for these purposes you need to use JOINERY adhesive.
11. It is very undesirable to immediately screw/glue a flexible steamed sheet into place, since when it dries it can tear out the fasteners or move away from the glue. The workpiece must remain on the template until it dries completely, which depends on the air temperature, sheet thickness and other conditions.
12. If a curved piece made of plywood will be stored for some time, then it should lie “on its side”, and the humidity in the room should not be high.

Several ways to bend plywood

Heating + Humidification

This method (but only in a more technologically advanced version) is used in production. The plywood sheet is steamed and placed under a “hot” press, which, using a matrix and a punch, gives the workpiece the required shape. The machine can bend a relatively thick slab, or several sheets of plywood at once.

When working with your own hands, you will have to be content with plywood 4-15 mm thick as a raw material. It is better if it is a sheet of the FK brand with birch veneer - it does not need to be kept in water and under heat for a long time. Twenty minutes or half an hour in a bath with warm water usually plenty. With the FSF brand it is more difficult; it needs to be steamed more intensively and for more time. The thicker the sheet, the longer the exposure should be. People solve this problem in different ways: some build a chamber-box into which they insert the spout of a boiling electric kettle, others try to use household air humidifiers and various steam generators.

No matter how the process of preparing plywood to a state of flexibility takes place, the sheet must be formed and fixed. Here again we have a huge field for creativity. Perfect option- this is to make a complete spatial matrix. You will need a counter part - a punch. By clamping the workpiece between them, we obtain the desired shape of the product. The force required to close the mold is achieved using threaded devices (clamps or just pins with bolts and washers), jacks, weights, etc.

But with one-time work, the construction of an improvised press becomes too burdensome. Therefore, you can try to bend the prepared plywood sheet on a template. The template is usually made from the same plywood, edged board, timber... The steamed sheet is laid on the form, after which it is fixed with tie straps, clamps or simply a screwed-on timber.

Alternatively, to form plywood, you can use stiffening ribs from rolled metal (steel strip, square pipe), which already have a given radius.

Gluing multiple thin sheets

Let's say we need a curved strip with a radius of 600 mm made of 12 mm thick plywood. You shouldn’t count on getting such a radius from a 12-mm sheet when it’s cold, and, for example, making the desired part by heating and humidifying is for some reason impractical. As a way out, you can buy 4 mm thick plywood, which without preparation can bend across the fibers with a radius of 1 meter or 60 centimeters. Our task will be to cut 3 strips, then bend them and glue them together.

There are three points to note here:

Carpenter's glue should be of high quality.
The sheets must be firmly pressed together with clamps.
In the design position, the glued part must be fixed until the glue dries completely. It is advisable to use a template.

Slot milling

This method is chosen when working with plywood sheets thicker than 18 mm, or when it is necessary to obtain a very steep bend radius. This method is so effective that it allows you to get even an acute angle. To begin with, parallel grooves are cut across the workpiece on the back side of the sheet at intervals of 5-10 mm (the more often the notches are made, the smaller the radius can be obtained).

The cuts only make it possible to bend the plywood, but you will need to set the required radius using a template. A very important operation here is filling the milled grooves adhesive mass. Since the cavities are too voluminous, sifted sawdust is often added to wood glue (or resin). If the part in a given place will experience intense loads, then the entire area of plywood with cut grooves, in addition to filling, is glued on top with sheets of veneer.

This concludes the story about methods for bending plywood sheets. The input data has been received - only practice will help further. In one of the following publications we will talk about how to bend edged board or solid wood timber.

Plywood sheets are often used in construction. They can be used as a base for bitumen shingles, for lining wooden floor before laying the laminate, etc. But the scope of application of plywood sheets is much wider; they can also be used to create elements with a curved surface. To do this, the sheet of plywood must be bent correctly.

Existing methods of bending plywood

When bending plywood, you need to solve 2 problems:

ensure sufficient flexibility of the sheet;
ensure safety new form plywood sheet.

The plywood sheet acquires the necessary flexibility after steaming or boiling in hot water. In this case, it is necessary to control the integrity of the plywood sheet, under too long an influence high temperature it may collapse.

The following methods of sheet bending are distinguished:

In industry, a combination of exposure to water vapor and mechanical action is used. Individual sheets of curved shape are literally pressed into molds and then cooled until they retain their resulting shape without external force.

The same approach is used for bending plywood at home. The only difficulty in this case is ensuring uniform heating of the sheet over the entire area. Wood cools quickly, so with a bend large sheet Serious difficulties may arise.
At the point of bending, the plywood sheet can be weakened with blind cuts. The cuts are not made to the entire depth of the sheet; the last 1-2 layers are left intact. After giving the sheet the required shape, these cuts are filled with glue.

A thick part with a curved outline can be obtained simple gluing several thin layers of flexible plywood.

Plywood does not dry instantly, so during the first 6-7 days after bending it is necessary to ensure that the new shape of the sheet is preserved. Special templates are used for this.

Templates can be made, for example, from chipboard, fiberboard, etc.

Even an ordinary steel strip can act as a template; it can be used if it is necessary to bend a long plywood strip. In this case, the plywood is simply tied to a steel strip.

How to bend plywood correctly - procedure

The answer to the question of how to bend plywood is quite simple - you just need to give it flexibility and secure it in the required position until it dries completely. The main difficulties arise precisely with making the sheet flexible at home. Most often, steaming or boiling is used to bend plywood. Therefore, first you need to determine whether the selected sheet will delaminate from exposure to high temperature and high humidity. To do this, a small piece of plywood needs to be boiled/steamed, periodically checking its flexibility.

For steaming, some even use irons, ironing plywood through a damp cloth. There are even homemade installations, which are a chamber into which plywood is loaded, with a hole at the bottom. In this case, even an ordinary kettle can act as a steam generator.

There is a definite relationship between the steaming/cooking temperature and the flexibility of plywood sheets of different thicknesses. The data shown in the figure is valid for a water temperature of 90-100 ° C; at a water temperature of up to 60 ° C, the indicated periods must be increased by at least 1.5 times. In cold water, plywood will have to be soaked 20-30 times longer.

It is important to remember that wood bends much better along the grain than in the transverse direction. Therefore, a sheet of plywood consisting of an odd number of layers of veneer will bend in one direction better than in the other.

Once the sheet has become flexible enough, it is attached to the template.

The plywood sheet takes 5 to 7 days to dry, after which it can be used. The bending of plywood greatly increases the options for its use.

How to bend plywood correctly, you need to calculate with accuracy down to each layer.

Features and types of work

The thinner the plywood, the easier it becomes to work with.
Initially, the veneer layers are positioned at different angles relative to each other to increase the material’s resistance to bending;
At the level of conditions in workshops and special workshops, bends and the desired curvature can be achieved quite easily: the parts are almost impregnated with steam, after which they are subjected to the action of a kind of vice, which helps to bend it to the required radius.

Note! Impregnation of plywood parts can be done at home. This requires the use of a vessel with boiling water and steam.

Another possible method is to bend plywood sheets using an iron in steam mode. The following details are taken into account:

Wood can cool quite quickly, this has a direct bearing on plywood;
It is quite difficult to achieve even heating of the entire sheet, because of this this type bending is suitable only for small parts of the part, which can be useful when producing curved surfaces of furniture or other small-sized products.

There is another way to bend plywood at home - in a bathtub with hot water.

This technique is much simpler to implement; it helps to place the necessary fragments in a bathtub or other large container, leaving them in hot water for about half an hour. After such procedures, the effect is guaranteed, because wood veneer under the influence of water and high temperature can soften without obstacles. This helps to acquire the elasticity of the plywood part.

Important! A sheet of plywood is prone to delamination of the material when exposed to hot water for a long time.

To avoid such consequences, you can carefully and closely monitor the effect of steam from hot water on the material. To do this, take a strip of plywood required thickness and soak it in the bath. Next, check the part every five minutes for bending. If after half an hour from the start of the procedure the fragment is able to bend well, then this particular period of time is enough to soak all the working material.

The part in a softened state is installed in a specific place and secured with self-tapping screws, then it should be left until completely dry.

Complex design

If it is necessary to perform complex combinations, it is necessary to take into account a number of features of this procedure. In this case, many moments may depend on the bend angles. If the angle is quite small, you will have to go through several processes.

The material must be soaked, bent as much as possible, and then left to dry completely. This procedure is repeated as long as it takes to acquire an element of the required curvature.

There are several basic technologies for securing workpiece elements after the soaking process. To do this, consider the following features:

If the workpieces are not installed immediately in a certain place, then you cannot do without accurate calculations, even bending and a combined option;
The maximum suitable result can be provided, thanks to a pre-prepared blank or template;
Fixations on templates with a guarantee eliminate the need to redo or correct the element.

We will talk specifically about fixing the desired element on the template until it dries completely. The template itself is quite easy to make, and there are also plenty of options for making it. One of them:

Take wooden slats so that the length is equal to the length of the element;
From chipboard or wooden parts cut several pieces, often used in quantities of three pieces, this also depends on the size of the sheet of plywood that is bent, then strengthen them with slats;
On finished frame Using self-tapping screws, secure the plywood puffs and leave them until they dry completely.

Large sheets of plywood

plywood sheet big size steam treatment is not always possible. In this case, it is recommended to make the so-called cuts in construction, which are presented in the form of cones consisting of strips. In this case, it is better to use manual milling machine. These parts are usually made to the opposite layer, without hooking it into mandatory, because in this case there is a high probability of splitting of the material. These tips will be useful for those interested in how to bend 4 mm plywood.

Note! For sheets 4 mm thick, the cuts should be about 2 mm deep.

Professionals advise making more cuts, which helps create a steeper bending radius. After the sheet of plywood is clamped onto the template, outer side at the same time sticks to thin layer veneer It is better to use epoxy or PVA glue. It will take about a day to dry. This method produces a workpiece that is hollow at the bends and can withstand considerable loads.

How to bend plywood, a video is provided below for your reference.

To obtain the desired quality result of the work performed When bending plywood, experts recommend taking into account the following features:

It is better to store curved sheets in a room with low air humidity - no more than 10%;
The radius of bending along is much larger compared to transverse deflection;
It is recommended to bend the steamed and soaked part in a warm state.

Many people wonder how to bend thick plywood. The above methods are also applied to such sized elements, taking into account the features affecting the material. A simple solution in this matter can be considered an intricate procedure by gluing several thin sheets of plywood, which are already flexible, into one thick sheet.

For those who want to learn how to bend plywood at home, a video is provided.

For those who don't know how to bend 10mm plywood, below is one of the common methods. Here are its main actions:

Soak the plywood sheets in water for about two hours. Or soak until the parts soften.
Pin soft sheets plywood in a bench vise.

Bend the parts using clamps or another convenient method.
It is recommended to bend sheets of plywood along the grain to make it more durable and not split.
Leave it to dry for about two hours.

Adhering to the above features of the plywood bending procedure, the work process at home does not cause difficulties.