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I am making a bending pipe to see if I can coax some more radius on the sides I bent on my fox bender.

I have a 2 1/2" OD stainless pipe and a paint stripper type electric blower to heat it with.

What temp should I be aiming to get the steel to ?

John

350* to 500*F. Be careful that at the higher temp, you avoid scorching the wood. I keep a wetted wash cloth on the iron when bending and it seems to apply just the right amount of steam. It takes practice but for touching up an already bent side, you should be fine.

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JJ
Napa, CA
http://www.DonohueGuitars.com

The 'rule of thumb' I learned for bending irons was that a few drops of water (from the bucket with the washcloth) should 'dance' on the iron.
If the water sits there steaming, it's too cool. If the drops flash to steam instantly, it's too hot.
It works for me. I use the iron for touch-ups and bending purfling/binding.
And the washcloth is a good idea. (Make sure it won't bleed colour). You can cool down the iron with the wet cloth.

Cheers
John

Concur with John A. I have used a bending iron but now use blankets. I could never find the joy in using the bending iron that gives a good feeling to some folks. But must confess that I occasionly use an iron for touch ups or odd shapes.

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I did that for a while and killed two heat guns.

I now use a stewmac hot pipe.

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Propane torch works too.

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Rob

Or you could mist your wood with a little pump spray bottle--away from your iron, then moving the wood quickly to the iron. Yes, the "dancing beads of water" is a very good rule of thumb.

A light bulb or barbeque starter with a dimmer switch works great. I use a 300 watt incandescent in my large pipe and a 300 watt halogen in my small one.

I went to lowes and bought a section of cast iron pipe. In the past I heated it with a harbor freight heat gun. Today, I accidentally found my propane torch. Heated the pipe with it. Way better than the heat gun! Was finally able to bend that pretty candy cane purfling!!!! I will post some pics tomorrow.

Scrap of 3" exhaust pipe from a muffler shop (free), charcoal starter from Lowes ($10), and dimmer switch from Amazon ($10): http://www.amazon.com/Westek-6089B-Range-Control-Dimmer/dp/B000FPCEGI/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&s=hi&qid=1281831162&sr=8-9

Add a scrap of wood to mount it to and couple bucks for nuts and bolts and L brackets, and you've got yourself a bender. Works great

But I need something with a smaller radius for headstock and fingerboard bindings. I tried a small hair curling iron, but it couldn't get hot enough. I think I'll try a 1" diameter next, and if that can't do it, I guess I'll have to get a thinner muffler pipe so I can squish it into an oval and use the charcoal starter again.

Fortunately I only like venetian cutaways on 12 fret guitars where the curves are more gentle, so I probably won't ever have to do tight side bends. But if I was, I'd go straight to the squished muffler pipe.

When I got to the bending part of building guitars, I was hoping I could avoid heat pipes. But I could not. There is so much u can do with hot metal and wood.

Has anybody ever tried a soldering iron hooked up to a router speed controller? Seems to me that would be a great solution for detail work and tight radii.

I've used a soldering iron with a 1/2" diameter tip to touch up binding. But it's a commercial iron I use to solder the Reso up with.
http://www.hexaconelectric.com/CATALOG/ ... fault.aspx
Has anyone just drapped their blanket and slat over a pipe and spring clamped together and bent it with that for touch up?

I thought I would note that I did plug my soldering iron into the control that came with my heat blanket (blues creek). It worked great. Now, I am going to buy a dedicated soldering iron for detail bending. I set it on medium, BTW.

You can buy heat cartriges from McMaster's at different lengths and wattages at a resonable price that would do a better job then a soldering iron. You might want to check it out. Just get a piece of Alu. round bar and drill a hole in the end and insert HC and there you go. Same thing as an ibex without the temp control but your blanket controller would work with it too.

Never heard if heat cartridges.... Gonna look that up

That would be Cartridge Heaters.
http://www.mcmaster.com/#cartridge-heaters/=8fredc

Does these cartridges need to be in close contact with the wall's pipe?

Yes, it's more of a conductive type of heat source then a radiant heat source as far as I know and that's why drilling into a solid bar of aluminum works the best. I've never just laid one on the bench and fired it up but I'm almost certain it doesn't glow red. We used them in a foil hot stamp machine to heat the printing head which was made of Aluminum and held the steel type. Aluminum and copper will conduct the heat better then steel. Just take some alu. to the belt sander and see how quickly it heats up. You could probably make a nice side bending form out of alu and put a few of them in it for a heat source if you had the cash to invest in it an alu. form. I suppose you could remove them from one form to another or one tool or jig to another. Might be some food for thought and something you can use in or on a future jig or project. If you have a metals suppy source near you then they usually have cut off or crop ends of metals that you can get for scrap weight prices.

Another good heat source is an electric charcoal lighter from one of the big box stores. They run $10 to $16 or so, and can be gently bent to fit in a pipe. A router speed control from HF is a good heat controller. They heat very fast, and work fine.

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Waddy

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Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thank you Chris,

That is what I thought. I bought an Ibex, I have used it only twice and the heating element does not work anymore . It is still in the warranty but I have read others complaining about the same. Perhaps I'll go back to my iron pipe with a 200W halogen lamp.

Could be a loose wire for that matter. I'd just send it back for the warrenty repair.

The IBEX is simple to repair - open it up and take a look - you can pick up another cartridge heater. Remember to never use your IBEX at the highest setting. It will burn the heater. If you do - then like I said it is easy enough to fix.

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