Make JAW DROPPING Floating Shelves By Bending Wood!

You can now buy the Floating Shelves here!! www.etsy.com/listing/1458833985/oval-floating-shel…

Next time you go to bend the material… have a template set up and fastened down, that you can clamp to. This will allow you to keep one hand free to hold your iron. BTW… drape a wet rag over your miter cut area and keep the iron over them as you bend.. keeps the wood from drying and infuses the grain with steam. I do this every day… I build cabinets for private jets.

Gorgeous! I’ve never seen anyone use that bit to do kerf bending, but it makes perfect sense. You need so much less wood fill than using a circular saw. I think maybe you could make it a little safer by just plunging one quarter inch of the router per pass and doing each kerf over 3 passes. I worry that the skinny CNC bit is more prone to break with high friction. Overall you’re a boss and I loved this video and subbed

I bought an 18 degree router bit to do this very thing. (5 cuts = 90 degrees) I decided I preferred an odd number of cuts because that allows me to use a cut as the center. I also did the math to figure out the bend radius in order to account for the gain in material length. Glad to see someone beat me to proof of concept!

Gotta say this is the first time I've seen someone attempt to do kerf bending on solid hardwood instead of plywood. Your solution is nothing short of brilliant, giving a nice clean and even result. The kerfs are nearly invisible, compared to the traditional methods, and if you wanted to, you could get rid of the remaining faceting inside and out with a bit of sanding. Nicely done and you've got a new subscriber. Thanks for sharing!

One suggestion to help with the cracking issue. Guitar builders have to deal with this a lot, as we bend wood all the time. One thing we frequently do is to use a piece of aluminum flashing that is bigger than the bend we are doing and hold that against the wood, supporting it for the bend. We are usually doing that against a hot pipe of some kind, but I don't see why it wouldn't work here, too. You would need to clamp the work piece to the bench, but then use the flashing against the outside part of the bend and use IT instead of just bending the wood by itself. It backs up the fibers in the wood and helps prevent cracking. I hope I explained that well enough to make sense. Nice project, it came out well. But definitely use Titebond I for light woods. In fact, I use it for almost everything. III has issues on some woods and in some situations. I is just about perfect unless you need waterproofing.

Dude, I freaking love these! I also audibly gasped when I heard the walnut crack 😂. Glad they both turned out well.

Editing, pace, script, concept, execution: all top notch. Well done!

Great job, for some reason I can't stop thinking of those as a custom home surround sound system. I think it would loom really awesome and modern.

Fantastic idea. I would consider routing the edges with a rounding over bit too, but this looks great!

Excellent project, great result, and I love the fact that you show the potential mistakes to help viewers avoid disasters. Well done!

Wow, those floating shelves are truly mind-blowing! Can't wait to try bending wood like this at home 🌟

I appreciate that you share your mistakes along the way. Hopefully it helps others from making the same mistakes. Keep up the good work.

Nice looking results! Thanks for sharing the technique, it's a big improvement over the table saw kerfs. I think saw kerf bending assumes you are going to veneer the face, this gives you the option to do it without have to cover up the ugly kerfs.

Dude, this turned out awesome!! Great story and love how the final project doesn't have those ugly gaps. Keep bending wood! (And making videos)

Thank you! I've been thinking this should be experimented with for years and found nothing. One potential addition to make it safer, especially on deeper cuts, would be to use a different router bit or a table saw/miter saw/track saw set at the correct angle and cut twice to hog out most of the kerf, then the little carving bit to just finish off the very bottom for that nice sharp point to the kerf.

Hey this is a great method! Thanks for sharing. Nice shelves. I'm thinking they would also make a good speaker box project. 3:26 was perfectly timed!

Amazing!!! I was sure that walnut was going to fail on you but you adjusted and made it work!!! Thanks for the video.

Awesome video and awesome results! As a luthier who deals with bending wood on the daily, I have some tips that might make things easier in the future. Main thing is heating the area you're bending, but keeping it saturated with water/steam. Instead of heating the wood directly with the iron, soak the wood, letting it sit for at least a few minutes, add a bit more water, then cover the surface with aluminum foil before using the iron. This will help keep the moisture from escaping. I'd try to add heat for at least a few minutes before bending. This will really soften the lignin and let the fibers slip past one another while bending. It's important to let the water soak and penetrate, and also not evaporate from the wood. It's not the water itself that matters, but its ability to transfer heat deeper into the wood. As soon as the water is gone, the heat is only superficial, so you want it to stay as deep in the wood as possible. Second tip is to use some sort of flexible metal to assist the bend on the outer side. Best material is thin shim stock/spring steel because it wont kink, but any thin and flexible metal like flashing will do. Just make sure it's always in contact with the area being bent. This supports the outer fibers, greatly reducing their ability to fray/split or otherwise come loose. Watch some violin/guitar side bending videos to get a good look at what I mean and it will make sense. Hope this helps! As soon as my new shop is done, I'll be making some of these. I was just sitting out there contemplating what kind of shelving I want to do. This video made the decision for me!

I love it. I have a huge passion for woodworking and it’s not too often I come across a new trick I didn’t already know. But this is genius. Idk why I never thought about using a cone shaped router bit for Kerf cutting wood, it’s such a genius idea!