Official Luthiers Forum!

I just finished my bending form, and I'm looking to buy a blanket, and trying to figure out what's best to get.

Some of you have talked about blanket (or wood?) temperature during bending. How do you measure the temperature? Is there usually a temperature probe inside the blanket? Or, is there a separate temperature sensor that the controller uses? It seems like it would be hard to measure the temperature of the blanket/sides without a sensor right in the blanket. If you stuck some kind of sensor outside the wood/blanket/slat sandwich, you might not get the real wood temperature.

So, if possible, I'd like to get a blanket with a sensor inside. I could use it to monitor the temperature, at first, and maybe add a temperature controller in the future if it would help.   I do have a big (1500 watt) dimmer I can use to control the power to the blanket, and a timer.


The only blanket I can find on the web is from LMI. Does anyone know if their blanket has an internal temp sensor?

Any other recommendations as far as who and where to get a blanket (and what to look for?


Thanks for any advice or comments,

Phil

The latest issue of Guitarmaker (#55 for those of you following along) has detailed instructions, parts lists, etc. for how to build a true temperature control unit.

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

John Hall at BluesCreek has blankets. Also Omega Engineering has them but there is often a long wait. None have a temp sensor built in but you can go to Omega with part # CO3-J which is a cement on thermocouple.
The article that Brock talks of is worth the price of membership if you aren't already an ASIA member.

I use Minco blankets and have been quite happy with their performance. They have fast shipping and have many custom sizes and wattages available.

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tim...
http://www.mcknightguitars.com

The rheostat works ok, but just to be clear... the thing in the ASIA journal is a TEMPERATURE CONTROL UNIT. You can dial in a temperature and it will maintain that setting.

Very slick.

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

   The ASIA control is nice design. The investment in time is worth it. I may have to build them myself. The set up I came up with was affordable and relyable. Wood bending isn't rocket science. If you would like some instructions send me an email tippie@epix.net and you can get a copy
john hall

To add to what Brock is saying about the ASIA journal unit is that it has a thermocouple and thus a feedback loop where the actual temp is fed back to the unit to let it know when to turn off and back on.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

[QUOTE=Pwoolson] Omega Engineering has them but there is often a long wait. None have a temp sensor built in but you can go to Omega with part # CO3-J which is a cement on thermocouple. [/QUOTE]

Paul is there a companion Omega or other manufacturer temperature controller you'd recommend?

Watlow also makes controllers and sensors for their blankets that are programmable, so you can set it to heat up to a temperature, hold for given time, and then cool down to another temp and hold for time, at least I'm pretty sure they do that. I imagine they aren't cheap though.

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."