Building the Steam Box

There are several ways to bend the wood for the sides.  You can look on YouTube and find examples of these.  I chose to build a small steam box to make the wood pliable enough to bend.  I first assembled the body of the box from 4 long pieces of poplar wood using slotted joints and screws.  I didn't use glue because I thought the glue would just get messy when I turned on the steam.

I closed one end of the box with a small square of wood and then made a hole near that end in one of the side pieces.  This hole was overlaid with a large square piece of wood with the same hole in it.  The large square wood will sit on top of a pot of boiling water so that all the steam has to enter the steam box.  The other end of the steam box was left open for steam to escape.  While using the steam box, the open end will be covered only with a damp cloth.  I used a camping stove in my garage to heat the pot of water and fill the box with steam.  You can't see the pot of water in this picture, but it is there.  You can see the green metal of the camping stove.  I nailed together a few pieces of 1x1 just to hold the box up at a slight angle.  This provides a steady flow of steam through the box.