Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi, I'm coming with 1 question:
whether side bending can be done without heating blanket? that mean I will steam or boil the side wood and then put on the side bending mold, press it and leave it maybe couple days until dry.
Can it work?
thank's so much, herry

you might try 3 150 watt light bulbs in your side bender.... not as even heating as a blanket but it will work

I think I saw a book for classical guitars which told how to soak the sides and bend them on an inside mold and let them dry. There was a lot of spring back, but the sides could still be forced subsequently into and outside mold. After assembly, all the joints worked together to prevent the sides from springing back. I am not recommending this, and I sure would not try it with expensive wood. More recently, people are using Super Soft 2 to make bending easier with heat, so I suppose it would also help without heat. The above mentioned light bulbs are reported by many to work very well.

Boiling sides. That's how Mr. Sloane did his, hence how I did my very first Guitar sides. It does work but the sides are prone to cupping/corrugating and spring back. I don't know of anyone who still uses the method. That might tell you something.
If you try it you might need more than a couple of days for it to dry out.

Sorry to tell you but it takes heat. Steam will cause undo warping. I will not recommend light bulbs as I know of a few shops that burnt down from them so NEVER LEAVE A BENDER UNATTENDED .
You can bend by hand but if you are going to invest 100 hr to make a guitar. I bet someone live near you and can help.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Many years ago I did my first guitar following the Sloane book. That involved boiling the sides in a trough and clamping them to a form for a week while they dried. It worked, but not the method I would recommend these days.

I have also bent several sets of sides using light bulbs in a form. It does work, but the challenge is the air gap at the waist area. For the same reason, I would not recommend trying a cutaway side with a form heated by light bulbs.

Things got much easier when I got a heat blanket and this is what I would recommend even though this is not what you asked or probably wanted to hear.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

You can use an old clothes iron, I use one in conjunction with light bulbs.
Scroll down to the middle of page 2:
viewtopic.php?f=10133&t=37283&start=25

I believe you could get away without the bulbs and just use the iron.

_________________
A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

thank you so much all seniors, first I'll try with light bulb thank's Jack, because it's cheap and easy installing for me, and John F Hall, I've saw your youtube thank's that's bless me, thank's again all of you

I once used the method of cold bending on the recurve of an archery bow. We made a former and spritzed the wood (4 mm !! Ash ) and very, very slowly cranked the wood around. It has to be done slowly to allow the wood fibres to stretch and become accustomed to their new position. It worked. Fair degree of springback but we had allowed for that.
I think for Torres style ribs and extremely well behaved wood . . . it just might work. You would probably have to glue the linings on whilst it's still in the mould.
Then again. . . get yourself some hot fire and a metal pipe.

I've bent air-dried Ash 2mm minimum thickness, might have been a nit more, without heat. I dampened the wood, wrapped it in foil, left it to sit for an hour or three, then unwrapped it and bent it to the mold. I've even done cutaways this way! I was afraid that one would fail, but no. I clamped some cross grain cauls across the sides and left it to dry for about a week. The wood was dry before this time, but I wasn't. No spring-back.

I don't expect every wood to behave like this, some experimenting would be in order if you want to risk it.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

The odd Violin makers uses the cold bend method. It can work for their narrow, very thin ribs. Even in flame Maple. I think I tried Maple once but the rib cracked along the flame.
I've used the method a number of times for bending Ebony Veneer, to go around the back of the Neck. Also a test piece to see if I could do the double bent ribs of the Chambure Vihuela. It does work but a wider range of woods might show it's limitations. I suspect that Ash is one of the easier woods to bend, at least it has a reputation for steam bending etc.

Bending wood on a hot piece of metal is a skill that is (perhaps) exclusive to lutherie. Why not learn how to do it? Is there some special reason you don't want to do it?

_________________
We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

You could use the same argument for heating blankets and bending machines though. It requires knowledge but essentially it's the jig that does the skilled bit. The only difference is that he wants to use steam or boiling water as the means to make the wood fibres pliable.

I'm not getting into an argument about one being better than the other.
I just had some moments of romanticism about the beauty of the craft; coaxing the wood into pliability and the moment of release when the wood relaxes into shape.
One thing though, the hot iron is more useful for little jobs- binding around headstock for example.

_________________
We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

I've bend several with light bulbs too, but I filled the "air gap at the waist" during the initial heating with a small sheet of aluminium foil each side.
Helps to retain the hot air, and folds to almost nothing (or can be quickly removed after you are up to temperature) as you bend the waist.
Not saying a heating blanket isn't better, but some people don't have the budget for one.

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I found room in my budget for a heating blanket after I broke a macassar ebony side trying to do a cutaway on a light bulb heated bending form. Funny how trashing some expensive wood can change your budget priorities.

If your intention is to build more than one or two guitars or a cutaway guitar, I highly recommend that you bite the bullet now and get a heating blanket. I would also recommend spring steel slats to go with that heating blanket. I'm a big believer in the spring steel which provides some support to both sides of the wood as it bends.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Not to highjack, but a question, if I may?

I see the heating blankets sold with temperature controls and other hardware/equipment, and those pieces cost even more in some cases than the blanket itself. And all of the vendors say don't use the blanket without their high dollar temperature control.
Can the blankets be used without these as long as a person uses a bit of common sense?

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

I would say "yes" to that Mike provided that you use a thermometer and keep a close watch on the temperature. I use a router speed control but as often as not, have my sides bent prior to switching the control from "full power" to "variable". I start bending waist and lower bout at around 240 F and by the time I'm doing the upper bout I'm at around 300 F which seems to work out well. So it could all be done without the controller. That being said, I've found the router speed control a handy thing that can be used for more than just bending sides - for example controlling the speed of a router.

Cheers,
Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I imagine it could be done with a bit of common sense but I also I think it depends a little on the blanket as they come in various wattages. I have a higher watt model and it gets very hot VERY fast. Without a controller of some kind it would be really hard to turn it on and off manually and have much success. And a good quick response thermometer is a must for my uses as well.

I used that router speed controller from Harbor Freight for a while, before building a more sophisticated system, and it worked great. Cheap insurance against over heating IMO.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Thanks, Pat and Larry!

_________________
Mike

The only thing nescessary for evil to thrive is for good men to do nothing.

Well, yeah, it can be done. Like some of the other posters, I bent my first few sides according to the instructions in Sloane's books, and steamed a couple sets too. If you really want to boil/steam, there will be some springback, and you'll need to use a mold. It will do the job OK, but the wood has a tendency to cup and warp. You'll end up spending much more time with a scraper trying to even it out than if you bend it on a hot pipe. When you bend on a pipe, it tends to sort of iron the sides flat (across the width), so overall it is much easier and gets better results.

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

viewforum.php?f=10101



ops lets try this

_________________
MK5acoustics.com

Hi Joe, thank's, I've tried and did the first time for hot pipe, and I am quite happy to do this job, but after seeing the tool with models bending machine + heating blanket I see that with this tool more perfect result.
My first difficulty is heating blanket is too expensive for me, second; for hot pipe I've tried heating system with charcoal lighter but I did not heat stable, so I'm burning on the stove, because I burn quickly cool air over and over and it's boring for me. In a few days I will upload photos of the guitar side bending results of my first, I was preparing the photograph.
thank you all the best advice
herry