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...to bound an oval sound hole. The larger radii are easy but the tight one is breaking the bloodwood binding. I cut the bloodwood down to around .125 wide by whatever it comes as from LMI in thickness. I can always form the tight end radii but cutting and shaping to fit but would like to bind if possible to eliminate 2 joints.

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Thank You and Best To All

On the guitar in this thread, I just bent the upper bout and waist and flexed the 3 x 0.020" purf lams around the lower bout. Bloodwood bends OK, but you have to get it really hot, just short of scorching. You shouldn't have any trouble getting multiple 0.020" lams around a typical oval sound hole. Here's a bloodwood cutaway bent on a pipe at 1.8mm (0.070"). Just need to get it hot and get very close first time. Bloodwood does not like multiple attempts. It cooks and sets.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I usually do really tight bends over an old soldering iron (with a 3/4" brass "nipple" sheath) and a backer strap. Won't work if too thick.

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Dave
Milton, ON

I've bound a couple of oval soundholes using ebony veneer (0.020" or so) and laminating two layers. At that thickness. it doesn't have to be perfectly bent and will flex a certain amount to fit as long as the bend is in the ballpark. I snuck up on the length using a chisel and sanding stick until it was a perfect butt joint with the compression holding it snugly in the hole. A couple of pieces of tape to make sure then Wicked in CA glue, added another layer of veneer the same way then scraped level after dry. I use a piece of 1 1/4" pipe and a halogen bulb with dimmer for bending the tight radius.

This is how I do it as well, the strap for support is a must... I use a thin slat of aluminum or steel from the local hardware store.

Also bloodwood can be really tough to bend without breaking if it's not really straight grained (no runout).

I would vote for laminating multiple veneers. Bloodwood is usually pretty homogeneous stuff so nobody will be able to tell and it'll probably make your life a little easier. Here are a couple of pics of guitars (a classical and a flamenco) I did a 5-6 years ago with multiple BW veneers for top purfs and rosettes:

Sprayed the culprit last night with Super Soft 2, used higher heat and got it bent. Not sure what was the bigger help but it did seem to want 'set' once it took a bend.

Chris, that's an amazingly light bend on what I assume is a sound hole.

Thanks so much for all the help everyone..

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Thank You and Best To All