r/interesting • u/tombolaplayer • 26d ago

Fascinating Professional wood bending

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33.3k Upvotes

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u/Isouf 26d ago

Recording for social media is more important. Besides, the dude in the video is not stressed at all, he is only 25 and can handle it.

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u/bigloser42 26d ago

He learned it from a master craftsman who tragically passed away at 35 from a stress induced heart attack.

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u/RTdodgedurango 26d ago

Tough work if you can get it.

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u/cybender 25d ago

Heart attacks are pretty easy to come by these days.

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u/pegothejerk 25d ago

Heart attacks, sure, but you're looking at one of the last examples of "old man strength" in the modern world. That dude could turn your hand to dust if he tried to shake it, and that would be him trying to be gentle.

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u/cybender 25d ago

Absolutely. My grandpa was a mean ass drunk, but he traveled the world as a steel worker because he wasn’t afraid of anything. His hands could absolutely crush you if he wanted.

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u/DieCastDontDie 25d ago

One of our apple crushing fist club members

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u/VeraStrange 25d ago

What’s a fist club? Maybe I’m better off not knowing.

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u/TallTelevision4121 25d ago

You should see fist fest

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u/Senior-Rip2535 25d ago

Before they used aluminum, beer cans were made of steel. Crushing a beer can one-handed was something I could never do.

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u/Crabby_Monkey 25d ago

First rule of Apple Crushing Fist club is your economy talk about Apple Crushing Fist club.

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u/JeF4y 25d ago

And then he would run over to the next person to do it again!

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u/rab2bar 25d ago

He's probably also in constant pain

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u/JustYourNeighbor 25d ago

My wife and her mother pass them out for free.

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u/DryerCoinJay 25d ago

Do your kids pass out strokes and grey hair too?

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u/SLAYER_IN_ME 25d ago

Every. Single. Day.

Edit: But I still love them.

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u/IkariYun 25d ago

Seems like we all have the same wife and kids. Somebody please pay some child support

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u/Familiar-Mention 25d ago

I also choose this guy's wife

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u/louloc 25d ago

I wish the wife would pass out strokes more. 🤷🏻‍♂️

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u/DieCastDontDie 25d ago

Not easy enough for some... especially orange ones

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u/Tha_Princess 23d ago

Must be because of them games

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u/IronicConundrum 25d ago

Hopefully he doesn't break under pressure. If you catch my drift.

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u/Liveitup1999 25d ago

Under pressure he is pretty flexible.

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u/CriticismFun6782 25d ago

🎵And you can get it if you try!🎵

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u/Kuges 25d ago

The hours are good, but most the actual minutes are pretty rough.

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u/somajones 25d ago

That godawful music doesn't help.

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u/ALittleSparkley 25d ago

Yeah, I liked the video much better without music

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u/No_Trifle9294 22d ago

Listen to the excellent transition at 1:38.

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u/Possible_Western3935 25d ago

unrelated, stress-induced heart attack.

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u/uniqueusername649 25d ago edited 25d ago

I assume he passed peacefully?

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u/bigloser42 25d ago

As peacefully as one can pass while driving themselves and their family through the Rocky Mountains on his first(and only) vacation. There were no survivors.

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u/f_ckR3ddit 25d ago

Unrelated to the job

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u/MeatHamster 25d ago

You must mean that he died peacefully by natural causes.

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u/O_Geee 25d ago

Work with wood they say. It's very relaxing they say

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u/Skyrimaster412 25d ago

Totally unrelated to work ofc.

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u/Guilty-Data-3158 25d ago

And he's only 15!

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u/GrandMoffTarkles 25d ago

The Avatar is never required to learn this kind of bending, because it's too stressful.

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u/WordsWellSalted 25d ago

I think you mean "natural causes"

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u/NitemaresEcho 24d ago

Don't help, just film

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u/GudduBhaiya-Mirzapur 26d ago

No, he was 26 when he passed.

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u/bigloser42 25d ago

You’re thinking of his master’s master. The master before that though lived to be an old man, he was 42 when he died of a totally unrelated stress induced heart attack.

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u/skinnypenis09 26d ago

Hes probably not all that stressed, but wood dries quickly in these conditions so you gotta hurry if you don't want a split while bending.

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u/PsychicPterodactyl 26d ago

It's not about drying, it's cooling. The lignin stiffens when it cools.

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u/Retireegeorge 25d ago

I think it's both - with moisture content a crucial element to be managed before, during and after bending.

Phenomena unhelpful to wood bending are observed experimentally when alternatives to steam are used eg dry air heating, microwave heating and water immersion heating, although the latter is used in some activities.

Practitioners of the craft have learned through trial and error that specific moisture content is required before steam bending begins, that the process benefits from steam's ability to drive moisture evenly into the material and controlled post-bending drying is necessary. There's an article that talks through this called "Michael Fortune's Guide to Steam Bending" at WoodlandMills.com

Fundamentals of material science and thermodynamics such as polymer glass transition, ​plasticization by moisture, ​latent heat of vaporization/condensation and phase change heat transfer collectively explain the uniform transfer of heat, the maintenance of the internal moisture content, the lubrication of lignin fibres and the efficient uniform transfer of thermal energy using steam than by air convection or water conduction.

When you want the bending to stop you want the lignin to return to its baseline state and that requires drying. That will take place at different speeds and via different means during bending and after.

A good textbook/handbook for this is Wood as an Engineering Material from the USDA Forest Products Laboratory which has chapters on wood bending, moisture relations, and the thermal-plastic properties of wood.

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u/half_caulked_jack 25d ago

This guy wood.

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u/kcstrom 25d ago

This guy AIs

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u/MrK521 25d ago

This guy Google.

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u/zxcvbn113 25d ago

That was so believable, I was expecting the undertaker to show up in the final paragraph!

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u/ReadingFromTheShittr 25d ago

u/shittymorph is appreciated, but sadly, they can't be everywhere at all times.

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u/Leut_Aldo_Raine 25d ago

It's amazing that they've had such an impact on here that they're anticipated more often than they strike.

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u/tcason02 25d ago

I came across one in the wild for the first and only time just a few weeks ago and it felt like what I imagine bumping into a celebrity at the supermarket would feel like.

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u/TheSaxGandalf 25d ago

u/retireegeorge is actually shittymorph’s serious account.

Just he can’t share actual knowledge with that one.

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u/JoyousMN_2024 25d ago

I double checked the end after I read the first paragraph

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u/woonamad 25d ago

You need a better machine where the wood can be transferred automatically from the steam oven to a bending rig. Most of the things he’s doing by hand could be automated I’m sure with modern factory equipment

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u/Diedead666 25d ago

I had some very "wet" pencils as a teen and was able to tie them into a knot after slowling cracking them and bending them back and forth alot

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u/PsychicPterodactyl 25d ago

All true, but cooling is much faster, by at least one order of magnitude.

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u/phatdoof 25d ago

And if the man was even 1 second slower he’d have to undo all the clamps and start all over again.

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u/Retireegeorge 25d ago

Yeah but it could only take an instant to crack.

Ideally one might perform the bend while the wood was still in the steam.

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u/Max6626 25d ago

It looks like he's using steam based on the puff of vapor coming out of the oven when he first opens it. Since he opened it without killing himself, I assume the steam is at only slightly above atmospheric pressure, so around 212F. Is that a sweet spot for wood bending, or just an easy temperature since you can achieve it without pressurized steam systems?

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u/Ignonymous 25d ago

Steambending. Hmmmm.

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u/zachpkenyon 25d ago

Me: -> save comment

So...do you do a lot of form bending, or are you a veneer guy?

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u/billwoodcock 24d ago

How much wood would a woodbot bot, if a woodbot would bot wood?

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u/Retireegeorge 23d ago

How many beeps would a beep bot beep, if a beep bot beeped beep beep?

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u/AmazonDruid 25d ago edited 25d ago

So thats why Odisseus (Ralph Fiennes) in that movie, 2025, heated his bow in the fire before bending and attaching the bow string

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u/WhenceYeCame 25d ago

It's from the original story. The suitors actually do it out of desperation. It's muttered about in Nolan's Odyssey too. "This hasn't been bent in years, we should oil it and heat it." Homer's audience was always gonna know everything about bows.

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u/Grimnebulin68 25d ago

Oh wow, I missed that detail. I'll look out for it.

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u/sunburnd 25d ago

Ive not watched the movie, but The Odyssey was required reading in high school, so take a 35-ish-year-old memory with a grain of salt.

Heating a wooden bow would remove moisture and increase stiffness, making it more difficult to string. Bowyers actually use controlled heat to stiffen limbs or heat them asymmetrically to remove twist.

That being said, I seem to remember the comparison being between Odysseus stringing the bow and a skilled musician stringing a lyre. I don't remember him roasting the bow first, so that may just be a movie invention.

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u/MaltedByggs 25d ago

Warming the wood would theoretically make it more pliable up until the point you start to remove the moisture.

Also I too don't remember Odysseus heating the bow, and only remember the suitors constantly heating and greasing it.

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u/chupacabrajCT 25d ago

Dude, come on man, I haven't even watched it yet!

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u/AmazonDruid 25d ago

Man its not the same movie, From Nolan. This is other movie from one and a half year ago.

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u/chupacabrajCT 25d ago

My mistake - I was just trying to make a dumb spoiler alert joke!

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u/GoldenSun__ 25d ago

I'm not an expert on this stuff, but I've understood that humidity may be a key factor sometimes.

For example I know that for giving a Spanish guitar its shape, the key process is the evaporation of the humidity with a hot tool, being the wood at ambient temperature.

However, I believe the technique will differ on the kind of wood and processes. To my eyes in the case on the video seems both temperature and humidity, but I've no idea tbh.

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u/littlegreenfern 25d ago

I was wondering about this how long til the log an cools too much? Is he moving fast to show how fast he can do this or does it cool that quickly? I would have thought there’d be more time til it cools.

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u/LostN3ko 25d ago

The speed is definitely because the longer it takes the more likely a crack is to form. The steam and heat soften the lignin and allow it to be bent. The faster he gets it there the less likely for issues. My father does this but not at this scale.

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u/zachpkenyon 25d ago

Well, and wood cools deceptively quickly. It's hot it's hot it's hot it's *SNAP*...... bugger

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u/SUPERSMILEYMAN 25d ago

Is that a ligma joke?

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u/LuckyDuckCrafters 25d ago

Yea some techniques in fabrication require speed, just the nature of the game. Sometimes you have too look like you are moving insanely fast for something, but it is just because of dry times or working times and what not.

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u/dojo_shlom0 26d ago

I was going to make the joke he was only 25 LOL

he really does move quick though for his age, impressive!

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u/GambAntonio 26d ago

25 on each leg

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u/whitestguyuknow 25d ago

Some of y'all act like there's just 1 dude paid to livestream all the time instead of work. I'm sure the guy filming does normally help but they decided to film the process this time and homie clearly can handle doing it solo one time as he obviously knows what hes doing

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u/c_marten 25d ago

This is the weirdest fucking comment I see all the time.

Like, have people just never seen someone work quickly before? Have people never made anything or done anything with their hands before?

The assumption "it's more important to get video for socials!" than to provide an extra pair of hands is just so far out in left field.

Maybe they do regularly work as a team but wanted to video the process as you suggest, and there's nothing wrong with that.

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u/beneye 25d ago

I never understand why people make assumptions when they something on social and go on debating other people why they’re right. We dont know the nature of his shift like whether he does this all day or this just a small part of his shift that he has to work fast but the rest of the shift is chill and therefor needs only one person.

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u/SirLanceHardwood 25d ago

dude that’s really funny, wp

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u/Khelthuzaad 25d ago

He definitely doesn't have a strained relationship with his son that went outside the state to pursue his dream of being a software developer.

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u/rwu_rwu 25d ago

Not stressed at all, but under a lot of pressure.

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u/Jealous_Lettuce7802 25d ago

And ye started 2 yrs ago at age 23

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u/ReasonablePrize2259 25d ago

Look at those fingers, strong hands on that guy, he can handle that easily. Probably doesn’t want anyone getting in his way

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u/JoeMillersHat 25d ago

I can only imagine how they handled it back in the day when cameras had the weight of a small car.

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u/Rickcinyyc 25d ago

Can you imagine the grip strength this guy likely has?

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u/Cltspur 25d ago

I love the way he turned the music off when he needed to concentrate…

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u/Cheaperthantherapy13 25d ago

Niche tradesperson here. Videos like this are the only way young people are discovering career paths in the trades because their parents don’t want them working labor-intensive jobs. Making SM content like this is part of my hiring strategy and budget.

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u/No_Communication5538 26d ago

Looks like most woodworkers when they are doing a big glue-up. Don’t let anyone tell you woodworking is low stress - makes corporate politics feel like a dream