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Lately I seem to be having problems bending ebony bindings without them breaking. They are .090 by 1/4 inch. I have tried soaking them, using straps for support on the back while have them on the bending iron but they still break. I should also add that these are being put on tenor and bartione ukuleles so the curve is a little tighter at the waist than it would be on a guitar. Any ides would be appreciated.

I have never bent ebony with out breaking it. I always end up bending 6 or 7 pieces to get my 4 that are not broke

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B Bailey
Welcome to the OLF. Looks like your first post.
You are going to love this place. I use ebony binding a lot. Same size.
I do soak mine and bend it on my John Hall bender. I go fairly slow and start
the bend around 275 degrees. I have broken a few but most do OK.
I bent one set far a baritone uke with out much issue. Maybe I am going
slow and using a bender instead of a iron????
What are you using to bend them with???

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Andy Z.
http://www.lazydogguitars.com

Thanks for the responses. I do an initial bend on an iron so the waist is closer to the heat source when I put it on the bending form. I have done some with no problems but this latest batch has been difficult. I guess I'll go back and try again.

.090" is asking for trouble. You'd have no issues if you used two laminations of .040"-.045" instead. It will be impossible to see that they are laminated once done.

If you take the .090 down to .075-.080 you will see a big difference. .081 is one tenth as thick and because the bending is proportional to the thickness, thicker is always tougher, especially when it is ebony that is more difficult to bend in the first place.

On a smaller instrument you should also make the size of the binding proportionally smaller in scale with the instrument...go thinner, you wont regret it and your breakage rate will go way down.

I take my binding to .060 I agree that .090 is too heavy and to be honest , this is why heat blankets are so good as you can get the heat you need to bend heavier woods.
john hall
blues creek guitars

If you have made the bindings yourself you can also bend them wider. Maybe 2 - 3" wide. That helps.

I just picked this up from the StewMac newsletter and it works like a charm. I bent a set tonight for an electric with a really tight cutaway.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks to everyone for their ideas. I am going to go thinner and give it a shot. It makes a lot of sense and it was something I was considering anyway.