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I am just about to the point of bending the sides on a cutaway dred I'm building. Just thought I would check with all you forumites and see if there is anything I need to be aware of when bending curly maple.

My normal process is to soak a couple of pieces of craft paper and put one on either side of the side. Then I just sandwich it between my stainless slats and two heat blankets, bring it up to temp and bend away.

Having never bent any maple I just wondered if this method should wrk okay.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Proceed carfully, make sure you have good pressure holding the slates against your form, don't use too much water nor too much heat, I'm thinking in the 275° - 300° range but you can start your bend around 225°.

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I'll second John, don't use to much water. Just wetting the paper should be just fine.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

In truth curly maple is one of the easiest curly woods to bend imo. Scorching is the biggie to watch out for.

I just bent my first set of quilted maple and it bent very easily with almost no water. The one thing I did notice was that there were some greenish dark splotches after I was done bending in the areas with the tightest bend. They were not burns, but more like something that was leaching out of the wood. I'm not sure what caused this, and it did sand off fairly easily, however it would be nice to avoid for next time.

Good luck!

John

I too find curly maple very easy to bend. I should point out, though, that the curly stuff I've bent is of the softer variety. It isn't the "hard rock" maple. The stuff I have doesn't need much water. I've used higher heat without scorching -- around 275 degrees. The only problems I've encountered when bending it was a tendency to warp on the mold, where one edge of the binding would lift up off the blanket. I have a female caul for my mold now, though, so that is not the problem it used to be. Another problem I encountered with it was when it came time to scrape it down, it would tend to shred and tear out, especially on the edges that show along the top and back. So to get around this, I would plane it almost level using a small plane and then sand it down the rest of the way with a random orbital sander.


Best,

Michael Michael McBroom38946.7878009259

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Live to Play, Play to Live

Thanks for the info guys! I've had pretty good luck with bending so far, specially since I took John Hall's advice and started using the craft paper.

The only thing that is making me a little nervous is the cutaway portion. I'll let you know how it turns out. Should be some time next week, gotta go to Bruce's and back this weekend.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Dave, one of the most important aspects of bending a cutaway is keeping the slats/sandwich pulled tight so that it is supporting the wood. John How has an incredible bending jig for this. I'm sure there are pics in the archives someplace.

As has been said, less is more, when it comes to water and figured maples. More heat, too, but be careful of scorching.

It bends readily, but the deeper the figure, the easier it is to snap it, since the figure is, literally, end grain, weaving in and out, and the deeper, better figure is deeper end grain.

Less water, more heat, go slower.

John, quilted maple is flatsawn and bends a lot easier than quartered curly maple.

Thanks again guys!

Paul, I've seen John's bender and think it looks great! I don't have time to build anything like that right now though. Maybe later though....

Mario, I planned to go with about 250 degrees and move very slowly. Does that sound about right?

Anthony, quilted would be good but the customer picked this, and it is curly. It'll look really nice if I don't break it though!

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

The terms "curly" and "flamed" seem to be used interchangeably when referring to quartersawn maple, or so it seems to me. Do you guys (and gals) see it this way?
Nelson

yep Nelson I agree. To me though a Curly figure that the curl or change on grain orientation is consistent narrow widths I call it curly. If the it is in vastly varying widths I refer to it as flamed

Nelson - rightly or wrongly I consider "curly" or "flamed" maple to be synonymous with quartered maple. It would probably be more accurate to refer to "curly" in the context of flatsawn and "flamed" in the context of quartered.

[QUOTE=npalen] curly or flamed?[/QUOTE]

Massively curly

Nelson I know that dealer -- I've got a billet from them in my wood cellar.

I would say the picture is "flamed"?

My vote is for curly .. as in fiddleback curl, PRS 10 tops, the kind that is straight across a board, uninterupted, linear. When the figure tends to be more random in length, width, intertwined, then I call it more flamey. It has nothing to do with flat or quartered IMO. A well figured board exhibits on all faces.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Here is a back of one of my early guitars ... definitely more flamed, not curly IMO.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Awesome 3 piece back Tony, i'll have to try that out one day!

Isn't it furly? No....wait, it's clamed maple. I'm confussed, regardless, they both look cool.

I'd like to know what Jason Voth says about it, or maybe his Dad.
You out there Jason?

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I'm getting ready to bend a run of sides again and my thoughts once again go back to the question of how to get that "perfect" bend in curly (flamed )maple. I've ready many times, both here and there, that the secret to sharp cutaway bends with no splitting is to adequately support the material both sides with the metal strips. John's spring arm device for holding tension on the slats looks to be a step in that direction and I've seen Taylor's setup as well on their Factory Fridays.   
The thought ccurred to me that if one was to use relatively thick metal strips of, say, .030 thickness would this provide superior support for the material in the bend. These strips would probably take a set rendering them useless for the next bend so perhaps one could plan on that and consider them "throwaway". Methinks that the price of the sheet metal would be minimal compared to the high dollar wood.
Nelson
npalen38949.6662152778

Nelson -- I gather you aren't happy with fancy cutaway attachment you developed some time ago?

Yup well supported is the key. I think I am done bending cutaway's on my fox bender and going to go back to using a hot pipe. I've hear "ker-snap" too often

Anthony--The "fancy cutaway attachment" was an attempt to get a tactile feel when forming the cutaway. It does provide that but it is not the total solution.
I'm thinking that sheared to size strips of 21 gauge (.031") plain sheetmetal could be had for about $1 a piece or $4 per set of sides. That would be a small investment if it guaranteed "perfect" bends. A fringe benefit of using low carbon non-spring steel is that I wouldn't be fighting the spring steel when removing the formed side from the bender.
Back to the "fancy cutaway attachment", using heavier steel strips would probably cause me go back to the conventional cutaway attachment due to the pressure required.
All feedback on this heavier slat idea is appreciated.
Nelson

Nelson -- I am always to keen to learn of your innovative methods and thought process. I've learned a bunch from you.

Last Monday I had occassion to visit with a well known Canadian archtop builder by the name of Douglas Harrison. I told him that with quartered highly figured maple that I am thinking of abandoning using my Fox Bender for bending cutaways. He chuckled saying he got there years ago. His advice was similar to your musings above. Douglas recommended using a pipe where the cutaway is bent using a sandwich (from the bottom up) made up of: "steel/wet paper/wood/wet paper/heating blanket/steel" for the reason you suggest.