Lets hope some one can help me!

Can any one tell me what the straight length dimensions are of the rear wood (white Ash) that goes round the rear of the AD tourer is.
I'm having to replace mine, and I'm in the process of building a steamer to steam the wood so I can bend it into the correct shape.

Thanks for the help

Andrew, I've just measured the one on my 1928 (coil) AD and it is 38 ins. I can't vouch for its originality though.

Why can't you just run a tape around the tub from door to door then add about 6" to each end? To steam a length of timber successfully for the tub you need excess timber in order to "get a grip" of both ends. You should have a solid timber former, complete with nails/screws to hold the bent timber into it's final shape until dries out. First sit the board over the top of the body, mark the profile around the gunwale to give you final shape. Good Luck. Bill in Oz

Hi Andrew, a few years ago I got one made by john Heath, not sure if his successor still makes them. A much easier solution which saves the trouble of making a steamer is to laminate the timber. Either use very thin strips of real timber or use 1/4" ply, this can be bent very easily, there is a stuff called bendy ply, very expensive, but does bend very well round the corners. The main trouble is finding the correct glue, old fashioned Cascamite is I think still avalible and takes a long time to dry but it does allow you time to make the complete lamination. A couple of years ago I found a very good external glue which foams up filling all the cracks. It dries very quickly so you have to make the laminations a piece at a time but it does give you are very strong piece of timber, far stronger than proper timber. Hope this is of some interest.

Eric

I've been here before!
The steam or boiling water event is great fun and easy enough in ash [or hickory if you are in the US].
The trick is to form the side to side dimension accurately and just do a gentle excess in the fore and aft dimension.
Bill and the others will know that the 'former' is easy enough to make. It needs to be deep enough to avoid reciprocal bending, too!

To make the external or female support to the chosen plan view involves more material than a male mould.
You can do a wrap-around internal former alone, but I find these are inclined to splinter the 'hoop' in the stretching of the wood fibre. If you do the latter, use corner supports on the outside as well. If you are smart, you will make the blocks with clamp-able faces to allow you to really squeeze the shape accurately.
Over-bend the final angles as the spring-back is 3 or 4 degrees after cooling.

If you laminate out of ash, get each face/layer sanded and flat before gluing. Edges don't matter till afterwards. They bend better with damp heat, too. If it is too wet, use a steam-iron to dry off the excess.
Glue: use a resin [epoxy or two pack] or a polyurethane adhesive. Try boat builders and marine suppliers for the best ones. Forget PVA!
My local boat builder allowed me to use his steamer! It cost me a couple of hours learning about boat-building.
Make three and sell them on!