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so I've managed to crack a side for the first time on bending . So far I've bent Rosewood, Maple, figured Ovangkol and Silver Oak without incident but this set of Macassar was "a bit of a swine" to say the least. I used my usual setup - steel slat/blanket/wood slightly wet wrapped in alu foil/steel and started to bend at about 300F with most at about 340F on a solid 000 form. The crack appeared on the upper bout (its a bit of a tight bend for an 000 yes but I thinned the side to 0.09" here which I thought would be enough). Does anyone have any experience of bending Macassar? .... problems with it or advice? I'm just ordering replacement sides and would sort of prefer not to repeat the mess up!

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imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world

I recently bent a set by hand (one side dry, the other wet and alu foil) at about .075-08 and went nicely with no much rippling and no fusses. Macassar struck me as a very nice wood with no tendency to crack or splinter unlike some rosewoods feel.

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Build log

another oops - I got my conversions wrong. The side thickness was about 1.8mms which is about 0.075" not 0.09" as I said. I'll need to find a supplier of Super-Soft II here or get it from the US and try that. I knew it was going to be a tricky one - there was very little give in the wood even after reaching bending temp. Maybe it was just bad sides but it was probably me being inept lol.

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imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world

Might have been the wood. Indian rosewood has a solid reputation of being very easy to bend but I've had a few sets which were anything but easy.

As an example I recently got a set of Malaysian blackwood, another ebony from the same area. At 3.5mm the raw sides are so rubbery it feels i could try to bend them as they are The macassar was very stiff but bent fine.

Perhaps you got the temperature too low. Needs to be raised or lowered according to density and thickness.

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Build log

I've only built a couple of guitars, so keep that in mind, but perhaps you could switch the order of your "sandwich". The metal slat directly against the wood might help support the bend better than having the blanket against the wood. As has been mentioned, youll have to get the tempurature right. Where are you checking the temp.? With the blanket right against the wood, perhaps you're getting a higher reading than what the wood is actually at. Just a thought. Hope your next attempt goes better for you.

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sweat the small stuff.

thanks for the replies and advice all .... Heath, you could be right, I'm measuring with the thermometer between the blanket and the wood so it may not be all that accurate. Todd - do you not get any inaccuracies because you're not bending the wood right against the form but with some layers between it and the form? Or maybe that makes little difference and I'm having a bit of a "duh" moment

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imagination is more important than knowledge, knowledge is limited, imagination encircles the world