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I'm about to bend three expensive side sets (coco) with Venetian cutaways. I have a Fox bender. I don't want to experiment here. Looking for proper method, correct thickness before bend. I have SSII. And time and patience. Please advise.

.075 thick and bend like normal do keep the wood damp when bending. You should be done in 4 to 5 min.
When taking the wood out of the bender I take the cutaway off about 4 5 turns then release the springs and waist , Pull the pin and take the wood out the back .
you can also use bent nails and use them to hold the lower slat back to keep from overstressing the wood

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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

I bend my venetian cutaways by hand on a pipe. In regards to the thickness of the sides I only thin out the the cutaway portion of the side and leave the rest of the side at standard thickness (I remove the extra material from the inside of the cutaway portion). That way it is thin where it needs to be, but the rest of the side is at whatever my normal bending thickness is. I tend to go even a little thinner than John does in order to get the tight bends I prefer, but I would follow John's recommendation if you are working on a machine. And I always recommend practicing with scrap wood if you haven't bent cutaways on your machine before.

Josh

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
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House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
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The big helps for me were-

Using two heating blankets and moist brown wrapping paper.

Thinning to the 70's in the cutaway area.

Using some sort of technique to keep tension on the bottom slat while making the bend. I do what John showed in his videos, support the slat with one hand while tightening the caul with the other. (Others have elaborate spring tensioners on outrigger arms that are cool)
I usually bend the lower bout, take the waist about 2/3, bend the cutaway and then tighten the waist.

Rigging up a way to retain the lower slat in the cutaway area when removing the side. I can remove the the top of my bender and I have retainers for both ends of the lower slat so when you release tension the side just pops out.

Using double sides for arch tops and similar very tight cutaways so you bend at .050-.060. I recently tried bending both cutaway sides at the same time and it worked fine with Maple.

SuperSoft.

Even with all that I get nervous every time.

Josh, do you use a slat on the tension side of the bend when bending it by hand on a pipe?

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Mike the good news is that coco bends well. At least the sets I've bent. I consider it as easy as Indian.

Terence, I do us a slat on the tension side of the bend, at least at the start of the process. Once I start to bend my way around the "horn" portion of the cutaway than I can no longer use the slat. It is just getting in the way at that point. I built my first 50 guitars without a bending machine and that is where I got used to bending the cutaways by hand. When I got my first machine I did try bending a cutaway on it, but I wasn't able to get the shape I liked on the machine (I like a tighter bend that curves back in towards the sound hole before continuing up to the neck). Rather than try and perfect the machine method I just went back to what I already knew, doing it by hand. This also allows me to vary the shape of my cutaways slightly to suit customer preference without having to have multiple bending forms. I am very selective about what woods I offer customers for a venetian cutaway. I stick to woods that bend easily and will take a tight bend. For highly figured woods and woods that are prone to cracking I only offer a Florentine cutaway. Florentine is my preference to build anyway. I also use SuperSoft 2 when doing any kind of bending with figured woods (by hand or machine).

Josh

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com