Thanks for the comments.
To clarify what happened - I tried to bend Honduran Mahagony. I thicknessed both sides to about 0.85". The first side did bend ok. Doom came upon me with the second side.
The problem was not really the wood, but the bender. I followed John Hall's procedure from the youtube videos - so I heated up the blanket, put everything in place, waited until the temperature reached 210F and started bending. When I came to the upper bout, I started to move the caul. At that moment one of the hooks within the side bending machine that hold the spring for the upper bout decided to break.
So there I was - temperature was high and climbing, the lower bout was already bent, as was the waist (partially), but I had nothing to bend and hold the upper bout in place.
Panic stricken I switched of the blanket, feverishly searched for the spring that was catapulted somewhere in my shelf, improvised another hook, screwed it in, heated up the blanket again, tried to attached the caul, slipped and catapulted the spring into my shelf again (at that moment I was close to throwing something against the wall), found the spring, reattached the caul, spritz some water on the wood, wait for the temperature to be up there again, and started to bend the upper bout...crack.
Needless to say, that I didn't manage to keep the whole process in the 4 minute range. At least being able to successfully bend the first side gives me the confidence that I have the process down. But before bending the next side I'll definitely revisit my bender.
btw. after half an hour or so I really laughed about the whole thing. I wish I could see a video of myself
Christian
I did the same thing an hour later sat down and laughed about it and the next day I took the side of the bender and put it in my back yard and shot it.... That felt great! 
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