More ways to break a workpiece

After I snapped the batten that I was trying to boil-bend into a bracelet, I had some thoughts about how to avoid that outcome. I tooled up and tried again.

It's a bit hard to see in the photo, but I've taken a red pencil crayon and pointed out weaknesses in the grain of the board. I cut away the split at the left edge and tried to take a few slices of clear grained wood.

 I figure by having a range of batten thicknesses available I can experiment to find out what works. The next thing I wanted was a clamping form. I can make one if I can't find one, but...

A standard 1 1/2 inch ABS pipe coupling has almost the right outside diameter. And room for spring clamps.

Once more into the pot, along with the cleaned-up chisel cut beads from a previous post.

After 15 minutes of boiling, I removed one of the battens, drained it on paper towel for just a moment. and then started gently molding it to the form. It was pliable, and was almost entirely clamped when it snapped along the grain. Ah, I thought to myself, right. The grain has an inside and an outside for this purpose.

So I examined the next batten more carefully, figured out which way kept the grain supported, and carefully bent it around the form. It tore right across the grain.

So, apparently in the absence of more refined technique, I'm going to need to try thinner battens. But it's getting closer...