Week before last I got back from Nebraska to find the shelf that held my stickered stack of side on the floor of my shop. Fortunately I only lost three sides. One was a quilted Sapele, and the other two were curly Nara. Both were beautiful sets I got from the Zoot man. The Sapele broke across the grain in 3 places total loss. One of the Nara sides broke full length with the grain as did the other pluse a 8” section across the grain.
After crying in my beer for the last two weeks, this weekend I took the pieces of the Nara and CA’d the section that broke with the grain back together and bent it, not figuring it would stay together during the bend, but to my surprise it did. Then I cleaned up the broke edge of the other and bent it. It left me with just enough to bend to the apex of the upper bout. I pipe bent the 8” broken drop on pipe. I was able to assemble the rim into a sharp point cutaway OM. It is not pretty though. I will have visible crack lines where I repaired it. But I just could mot trash it till I tried. This will not be for sale, but we will see it holds up. I think I will add some bias tape on the in side of cutaway return to give it some extra strength as well as along the full length crack on the non cutaway side. I twill look like dung but at least it is not $150 firewood
a working one anyway
I'm not picking on you; it's just that, being wood-poor, I've been shocked at what people actually DO throw into the fire! Quality hardwood can almost always be used for something, even if it's just a pad, shim or decoration. Save the butt-ugly stuff for the fire!