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Anyone have success bending spalted Maple? If yes, was any of the wood "punky" or soft, or was the wood in the early phase of spalting (still good integrity of the wood)?

I'm wondering if the lignin of the wood is actually destroyed in the later stages of spalting, and thus maybe the wood cannot be made "plastic" by heating.

I'm also wondering about using Supersoft2 for spalted Maple. I was amazed in the past, when using some glycerine-based veneer softener on some brittle wood veneer, how leathery the wood ended up after a couple of days of treatment.

There must be some point in the spalting process where the wood integrity is destroyed, and application of Supersoft would be like making papier-mâché, but maybe it would work if the spalting was not so advanced.

Anyone have any experience they'd be willing to share on this?

Thanks,

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Sounds to me like a job for a secondary backer lamination

Hi Michael,

OK, but that assumes you can successfully bend spalted Maple, at some thickness. Actually, I have seen photos of spalted Maple guitars, like this Washburn:

but I'd still like to hear from some folks that have bent spalted Maple to share their experience.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

From the ammount of spalt I see in that guitar .. there isnt any punky stuff on the side pieces - it would be like bending maple fo the most part. I am thinking the top is a laminate as well ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Talk to Paul Woolson. He used it on bindings before and IIRC he pulled his hair out over it.

I have built electrics with it and it can be very challenging to work with.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks, Tony and Brock.

Tony, I agree that the sides on that Washburn guitar don't appear to have advanced spalting - it looks like solid wood with a hint of spalt, and probably would not be an issue. And, the image shows that at least at that stage, it will bend. I'm trying to see if anyone knows from experience whether the moderately spalted stuff will bend.

Brock, I'll see if I can contact Paul. Again, the degree of spalt would probably be a huge factor in successfully bending bindings.

To all: I have a gorgeous spalted Maple back set, and another billet that will supply more. Well, to me it is a back set - to most folks, it is probably a "drop top" for an electric. I am trying to figure out if it is worth chasing after a spalted side set (or sets) to go with the backs I have. A major concern was that I saw a set of spalted Maple sides at a friend/luthier's shop - and they were cracked and unusable. He's an experienced luthier with very few cracked sides, and yet the spalted Maple was badly cracked. That's what makes me wonder if it can be done at all on moderately spalted wood.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

I asked this question a few months ago as well. Very few responses.
So I tried to bend some spalted maple. Mind you it had plenty of ink lines and some punk. Bending this stuff was a disaster. It separated at the ink lines and the punky areas just disintegrated (also tried using SS2), same results.Thickness was between .110 and .125.

I have yet to try this with a laminated piece though? I was thinking of laminating some plain maple to the spalted and then try bending? Not sure if that would work either?

Just my observations so far

Mike

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I'm outside looking in, just farther from the window than most.

Hi Mike, and thanks for the reply.

I know there are luthiers bending very thick sides out of some of the easier to bend species (such as Walnut), but to this beginner, .110 to .125 sounds incredibly thick. I've only bent 4 sets of sides at this point, but they were all around .080" thick. I wonder how your results would have been if you had thinned the material down to around .080" to .085"

The concept of laminated sides intrigues me as well. I'm thinking that there may not need to be any heat involved at all - just cold laminating veneers. For that, I would think in terms of my furnituremaking days, and go with 3 laminates: Maple / something / Maple, and the something might be Poplar or even another layer of Maple, but with its grain running 90° (crossgrain.) I would think of normal, modern veneer thickness (1/40" to 1/32") for the outer layers, and try to find some thick (1/16") veneer for the core. Maybe this is the only way to sort of guarantee success when using spalted Maple for guitar sides.

I have some spalted Maple that has zones that are too punky to use for sides, but I could at least slice some up and try to bend it as a test (with and without SS2.) I guess there's nothing like experience!

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

Dennis,

I understand that this is in ref to spalt that you own...

I think the spalted stuff is so nice. Yet I have read so much about the difficulty of bending it. I did read recently about how one could make there own spalting by gathering the right fungii in the woods. It would be cool if one could spalt the wood in situ.

Mike

hahahahaha wouldn't that be scary? to build a guitar and purposely introduce fungal growth!

Actually, by 'in situ" do you mean spalting a billet? I have thought of that. Just haven't had the right billet to try it with, and the guts to go forward with the experiment.

Dennis

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Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia