with my new blanket bender and all the good advice around here, i thought i'd get fancy right off the hop and build with a few tricky woods. the sapele worked out fine. neck and tail blocks are glued in, kerfing is in, and rims are sanded.
but i just cracked a wenge side badly (beyond repair) while coaxing it into the outside mold - long split along the grain with a few big splinters that went flying. i bent one day, re-cooked at 280 for a few minutes the next day, and the side still relaxed a lot coming off the bender. i probably should have touched up on a hot pipe.
here's where i need your advice. do i buy another set of wenge sides and try again or do i abandon this splintery stuff and go back to tried and true eir? (so you have my experience in mind as you advise, i bent my first set of eir on the pipe, did the next three eir and one paduak in a light bulb bender - all with decent success, though the paduak felt like i was pushing my luck with the light bulbs.)
what's keeping me even considering another wenge attempt is that the back is already glued up with a strip of koa between the halves and i think the completed instrument could be stunning.
on the other hand, what's making me think of abandoning the wenge is that i can't really afford to be buying and snapping a lot of wood with what people are paying me for my guitars. if other wenge builders have found that they've needed to try three and four times before success, then i'd be inclined to go back to eir (the guy i'm building for was attracted by the dark brown color and the ringing tap tone).
if money were no big deal i'd be inclined to buy a few more sets and not take no for an answer. but that's not the case, so it would be nice to get advice from some of you before i make my next order.
thanks in advance,
phil
|
Seriously, I would try going about 300 - 305.