Official Luthiers Forum!

I just took the EIR cutaway side of my Manzer wedge small jumbo out of my Fox style bender and it turned out, no cracks kinks or anything bad even in the tight cutaway radius. I bent a non cutaway Cocobolo 000 set last month and decided what to hell bend the cutaway. Taking off the kraft paper and finding a good side was better than opening a Christmas and Birthday present combined. After hand bending a Dread and a Jumbo cutaway the blanket system is so much easier,and quicker. I had to touch up the upper bout on the bass side a little due to spring back but the cutaway side was spot on.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Don't you love this place Fred?

When something that you've toiled over actually WORKS, there are few places you can tell people about it and have them not look at you with a blank stare and ask you what the heck you're talking about.

I'm happy for you, and know exactly how you feel.


thanks for sharing.

Dave

That's cool Fred!

Kinda gives me hope for when I do my first cutaway side sometime next week.

Coupla questions if you don't mind Fred:

Did you use a small blanket for extra heat in the cutaway section in addition to the big blanket?
What temperature and time profile did you use?

Just curious to see if my plans are in the ballpark....

Cheers,
Dave F.

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I only used the one blanket, I started bending the waist at about 260, by the time it was done the temp was at about 290, bent the lower bout and by the time I was done with it the controller had hit set point at 300. I opened the slats on the cutaway and sprayed a little more water as I has seen posted somewhere. After a couple minutes I started slowly screwing in the cutaway ram. It took about a minute to seat the ram fully. I reduced the set point to 280 as I was worried about scorching and set the timer to 5 minutes. At that time I breathed a sigh of relief and walked away for a cold one. I had read somewhere about reheating the press so after a hour or so I reheated to 280 and held another 5 minutes.

I probably spent 10 minutes from loading the press and starting the heat controller until the cutaway was done, so the heat was on around 15 minutes, for the entire bend process.

The next set will be either the nice Cocobolo I got from RC tonewoods or my Madagascar set from Allied, boy am I getting brave.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866