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I bought one of John Hall's Fox style side bending machines and I have a problem. No, the machine is good. I have the problem! The bending of the sides went well. I am making an OLF-J. The “Box” is ready to be glued. I was going to bend the lining ( with no kerfs) and laminate the thickness I needed. And Snap-o! As I went to remove the wood from the bender the metal slate on the bottom of the mold released and broke the linings. I have a bile of bindings and linings that cracked. I have ordered Super Soft II to help with the bending problems but how do you keep the steel slate from crushing the newly bent wood when it is releases from the machine? I do not have enough hands....

Thanks for reading...

I made J shaped clips from close cloths hanger that I insert the long end into the aluminum tubes and short end goes between the lower slat and wood at the lower bout, waist, and upper bout. it takes 6 of these, 3 each side. The propose is to hold the lower slat in place as you loosen the waist and upper/lower bout cauls. You have to loosen the wait caul a bit to get the waist on in place. But I have to say I worked 5 years with out them by taing my time and hoding the lower slat as I released each caul

Sanford, attach a cord to the ends of the bottom slat and tie them down.

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Aoibeann

Wait.... Don't I have to buy wood, visit Lowes, wait on UPS, and make a jig or something?

tying the ends won't work. Take some 8 penny finish nails and bend them in a tight U. The with the tubes , set one in the tube and let the "nail" catch the bottom slat. Then as you take off the tension the upper slat will fall away the the nails will keep the tension at bay till you get the binding out. I also will tape the binding together so they are in essence a mini side.
Call me if you need more help
john hall

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
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You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Sanford my friend I treat binding that I am going to bend in my Blues Creek bender just as I would a side. This means the same thickness, same amount of misting with water, and the same times and temps that I would bend the same wood at if it were a side.

As John said I also tape my bindings together in the buddy system using 3M blue masking tape about 1/4" wide and strategically placed in about 4 locations along the length of the binding.

One of the reasons that I use stainless slats under the side or binding instead of spring steel is exactly because of what happened to you. The stainless slat is easier to manage in terms of spring back when cauls are released on the bender after the bend. The ideas above about securing your bottom slat are pretty good ideas.

Lastly my heating blanket does not have any heating elements for the first approx. 1/2" in from the side so I like to push my bindings, and sides for that matter, approx 1" in from the edge of the blanket. Mind you this is an area that we can't see well so I simply stick an engineer's scale in there as a feeler gage and move the bindings around until I am approx 1" in at both ends and the waist.

I use the stainless slats. Yes, they get bent, but are easily flattened before use. And they never come flying out of the bender!

Mike

Sanford,

I recommend taping them together and bend with one of your sides...

This is where I picked up this info from...Very Cool Site!!

http://mustapickguitars.com/62miminis/1/index.htm

Ray

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Guitar Building = Continuous Improvement Process

I think that I have a “handle” on this problem, one thing that I did not state in the opening post was that most of the problems occur in the cut-away bend. How about this: After the bending is done and the cool down has started, run all-thread in the waist bout, the cut-away bout, and tail tubes. Next, connect L shaped brackets to the all-tread through a drilled opening in the L” bracket and tighten with thumb screws to hold the lower spring steel in place until the upper slate and wood parts are removed safely. This system would then grant time to the removal of the wood and not cause a modification of the bender nor forms. If clips were used, I would possibly knock one loss and brake the wood again.(If some can happen to mess things up, it will.) All-thread would prevent loss of the clips slipping. What do you think?

Sanford Stanton

I just bent the curly maple bindings for my Manzer wedge and had no issues with spring back, I duct tape the ends of the bottom slat to the mold after releasing the tension a little, the cutaway bindings are in the bender right now and I will try the same thing, duct tape is a gift from the gods.

By the way I sure love bending blankets and bending machines, beats the hell out of the pipe bending I did on the 1st 3 guitars.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
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I just put a heavy spring clamp on each end of the bottom spring steel slat and lash them together with several layers of brown binding tape. (non-cutaway) Seems to work fine. Like John said, tape the four binding pieces together before bending to form a mini-side. Make sure any purfling is in the right alignment.
Terry

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.