Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a set of cocobolo that has been in my workshop for 3 months or so now , one of the bookmatched backs will not lie flat , they have been stickered, the whole time, I have tried spraying water on the concave side , and even tried supersoft and weighted the backs down but the one back will not lay down??? any suggestions would be appreciated???!!!!

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MK5acoustics.com

I had one like that once. I tried everything. Ironing will sometimes get flat, or using a heat blanket to flatten it. I finally gave up after none of that worked. I thinned it for building, glued it up and put it on a guitar. Worked fine. I have had no problems with it since I built it.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

If you have access to a dry mount press, used for dry mounting prints, that can work. Bigger the better.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

The fact that only one half is warped usually means that the wood had some casehardening before the board was resawn. In my experience, heating and pressing is the only way to permanently flatten it.
After the back is thinned to final thickness, slight warping can usually be handled with the back bracing. That assumes that the back can be thinned without flexing it so much that it cracks.

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John

I`ve had this problem a few times.I layed the wood with the concave side down, meaning that the center of the piece was sticking up while the edges were touching on a concrete floor and then layed bricks on it.Took about 3 months to flatten out.Once flat I stickered it in my RH controlled room.Some of these have since become guitars with no problems.

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James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

I have heated some in my kitchen oven and then placed them between two pieces of 3/4 plywood with some weight on top for a week and it worked.

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Another day, another dollar.