: As far as I can gather the RF just produces old fashioned heating, which
: relaxes the lignin in the wood. Furniture manufacturers have RF presses
: for forming curved chair parts and such.

: They also sell a hand held RF gun for gluing that turns PVA into an instant
: glue. It would be great for stapleless stripping, if you could justify the
: $3000 price tag.

: Anyway, there are wood bending processes that are even more dramatic; how
: about a kayak sized steam box, a liquid ammonia bath or, my favorite, a
: hydrazine soak?

I checked into RF for strip building as the $3000 investment would pay off in a year. The problem I found is that as you would use the wand as a staple gun at every station you had to hold the stressed strip in place for two minutes to let the glue dry. 2 1/2 minutes x 15 stations = 38 1/2 minutes per strip! Way too much time. That doesn't include the time to pull a strip off the rack, find the glue bottle, lay a bead of glue etc... I lay strips now in the 17-20 minute time frame; stapless of course.

The other interesting problem was if there were any moisture present in the wood there was a good chance that the wood would actually explode out the back side. It didn't take much moisture either. Not to mention the giant arcing spark that will jump from the wand to your hand if you get it too close! That will also blow a chunk out of your hand. I learned all this first hand from the salesman (he had the chunk missing from his hand) manning the Wood Welder booth at the International Woodworkers Fair in Atlanta two years ago. Needless to say, I'm still using spring clamps and strapping tape to go stapless.