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Does anyone have experience bending ausie blackwood? I was thicknessing it today on my drum sander and noticed that it burns quite easily. I was just wondering if I needed to be concerned about my blanket temp. when I put it into my bender. If anyone has some input it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It wasn't my favorite wood to bend.
Next time I'll go from .095- .085.
Nasty to work with, but beautiful to look at!

We generally regard it as one of the easier woods to bend. The straight grained stuff is no more difficult than EIR. The figured stuff is easier to bend than figured maple.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au/main/page_10929_41.html

As for the bloodwood bindings....def. not the easiest wood I've dealt with.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Don't wrap your sides in foil when bending Aussie Blackwood or they'll turn green. It sands out but it's far better to just avoid foil in the first place.

0.085" generally works well.

Thanks for all the input it's greatly appreciated! Paul, I don't wrap with foil I wrap with craft paper so hopefully I won't have any green issues.

It's the easiest wood you'll ever bend.

But like Koa it will turn green and black when water is present and in contact with anything metal. Do not soak the wood. Just a wet and a squeegee off so it's barely damp, then I wrap mine in kitchen paper towel and then al-foil. It might get a just tinge of black that is easy to sand off. It's the water that will really stuff you up. Too much and it's all bad. You can get stains that will go 1/2 the way through if you get careless.

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Allen R. McFarlen
Barron River Guitars & Ukuleles
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Cairns, Australia

It's the easiest wood to bend according to my experience.
It bent very easily at 2.2mm (0.9'inch~) and there was almost no spring-back.

my aussie blackwood sides were perfectly quartered and there was very little flame.

Wow, not in my experience! But you have more experience with it than me, I'm sure. It does burn easily, or rather discolors when sanding with a drum sander, and it can be pretty tough to bend. Rosewoods are much easier in general, but I agree that it is gorgeous to look at. Perhaps that's why I have basically a lifetime supply of the stuff.

I can bend figured maple almost without anything but soaking it in really hot water for a bit. At least the softer varieties I can. I'd put figured blackwood on par with mahoganies.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."