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You may recall my woes a couple of weeks ago when I cracked a maple side bending it for my OLF SJ. Since then Jason set me up with another side set as well as some practice sides, and I spent a little time with John Hall trying to figure out what I previously did wrong. I bent two practice sides refining my technique. The last practice side turned out pretty good, so tonight I decided to bend the nice ones. Total success! They turned out perfect, so finally back to building!



Thanks to all of you for your help and input, but especially to John and Jason!

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Hi Ken,

Just wondering how or if you changed your technique in order to bend the new sides?

Thanks
Cal

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Hi Cal,

My mistake was not using enough water and taking too long to set the waist. Jason sent me a couple of sides to practice with. With the first one, I used too much water and got some cupping in the sides. I used less water with the second practice side, and it came out better, but still with some cupping. With the first of the good sides, I scaled back the water even more, but made sure I was through setting the waist within 4-5 minutes of plugging in my blanket. I ran the temp up to 350 after setting the waist, but left it there a little too long and got some scorching right under the neck cheek so no big deal. With the second of the good sides I followed the same drill, but ran the temp up to 340 then took it back down immediately to about 250-270 where it stayed for 30 minutes. Came out perfect. No scorching, no cupping, no cracks, perfect bends with no spring back.

I got the moisture for the steam by soaking brown craft paper in distilled water for about 10 minutes. I then squeegeed off the excess by running the paper between my hand and the edge of the counter top. I put these soaked papers on each side of the wood and then wrapped the whole thing in my steel slats. The heating blanket sat on top. The sides were .088".

Definitely a learning curve with this. Mahogany is very forgiving compared to figured maple.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

Thanks for the info Ken. I'll be bending some well flamed maple later this year, so this will help give me a one up on the stuff. I've bent mahogany, EIRW, Wenge, and sapele, but not maple. I do have a set of sides I could practice on so that'll help.

Cal

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Remember, there are no stupid questions, only stupid answers!

Glad you got them bent with no problems Ken. I too will be bending some figured maple as soon as i get a blanket. How wide is your blanket? Some are 5&3/4" and some are 6".The 6" ones are shorter also.I wonder which are the best.The longer narrower ones would probably be easier to put in the bender i would imagine and also have more length for cutaways.

Mark, I got my heating blanket from John Hall. It is 6" by 34". I guess if you are bending deep body guitar sides or like to bend wide sides prior to cutting to height, the extra little bit of width could help. Even though mine is 6", I can't imagine bending wood that wide. Maybe tossing some bindings in with the sides could use up more of the blanket and knock a couple of tasks out at the same time.

Here is a pic of my sides:



Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com