Rather than spending rather a lot of money on a nice new Stewmac bending iron; something I might not be using a great deal. I decided to copy an idea from the English guitar maker,
Rik Middleton. There are several pictures in his book, The Guitar Maker's Workshop, of a bending iron powered by a paint stripping gun.
The most expensive bit was the 54mm diameter copper pipe...could have tried the local scrapyard but it was a miserable wet day and I didn't fancy getting soaked. The rest was scrap lying about. I haven't used the paint stripper gun for more than a decade.
I'm a bit concerned about heat transmission and the wood getting scorched or catching fire. I've used some fibre glass stove rope at the base of the U bolts and lifted the steel brackets off the wood support with a couple of washers. I'll wait and see how it goes.
I used a copper scouring pad to block the end of the tube; there's sufficient clearance, at the other end, around the stripper gun barrel and the copper pipe to prevent any pressure build up; I'll see how that goes though. I imagine some of you guys wouldn't be keen on a large volume of hot air belching out into your workshop at the peak of an Australian summer - not really a problem in Orkney.
First attempt went OK on a plywood scrap. The pipe heated to water drop jump temperature pretty quickly on full power and remained hot enough on half power to maintain a sufficient temperature.