Hi everyone,
I'm looking for some input on a problem I'm facing with my bending process. I've scoured through the forum looking for a reason to my problem, how to prevent it from happening again and how to fix it.
I'm using a Fox Bender to bend my sides with the following sandwich : slat/blanket/slat/kraft paper/wood/kraft paper/slat. The slats I've made from galvanized duct work and seem to work great. I'm also using reverse osmosis water. I wet the paper and then squeegee the paper off on the side of my bench. I lightly mist the wood as well and then squeegee the wood off as well.
But I keep getting staining on the inside of the sides, and the outsides look great! I've bent two different woods now, wenge and bubinga and got staining on both. It was workable with the wenge because the wood was already dark. I bent the bubinga last night and this is the result :
I start my bends once I see steam and the sides bend like butter. This is usually around 220. I'm not waiting for the blanket to come up to the large temperature numbers I see everyone else using but the bending seems to go fine. With the wenge, I only heated once, then allowed to cool and I got staining. With the bubinga, I heated the side, allowed it to cool and then reheated the side with the same staining. Is it an issue of the inside of the bend not coming up to temperature like the outside where the blanket is?
And now the next question - apart from sanding, is there a way of removing this staining? I'm glad the outside looks perfect, but I want to clean up the inside of the rims as well.
Thank in advance guys, I really appreciate any input on fixing this problem.
Rob
I purchased a product from Home Depot called Behr Premium All-in-One Wood Cleaner that contains a less than 10% concentration of oxalic acid. I tried the product on my bubinga sides and voila! Here are the before and after pictures :