How to bend Pine sleepers with cross cuts?

bjor

Hi. I wondering if it’s possible to bend treated pine sleepers by alternating cross cuts on both sides of the timber. I’m looking at trying to bend 200x50x3000. Ideally I would love to get as close to 90’ as possible but any decent bend would be great. 
thanks. 

MitchellMc

Welcome to the Bunnings Workshop community @bjor. It's wonderful to have you join us, and many thanks for your question about bending timber.

It is possible, but whether it is practical is another question. What are you using the timber for?

There are a variety of online kerf bending timber calculators for working out your required cuts. For a 90-degree bend, it appears you'd need, at a minimum, 27 cuts using a 3mm thick blade at 115mm centres along the 3000mm length. In practice, I suspect that you'll find the outside skin will crack when you then attempt to bend the board. A better solution might be to do a series of cuts, segment the board, and then screw and glue it into your curve. However, you won't get a smooth curve from that method.

If you are using this for garden edging, have you considered products that are designed for this use, like the Rola Pak 200mm x 2.8mTreated Pine Ezy Edge Garden Edging?

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Mitchell