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I am in the process of redesigning the edges of my Pegheads to small radius corners in lue of mitered corners when bound and purfed. I want the inside radius of the purfling to be .125" r.. My solder iron makes a good bending pipe for this radius but with fiber purfling I having about a 50% success rate of completing the bend with out the fiber splitting, no matter how slow and careful I bend. I am much more sucessfull with wood purfling .01/.02/.01 bwb maple than with the same in fiber. I figured it would be the other way around. Any thoughts?

are you using a backer? I have pretty good luck bending really fragile things when I use a flexible metal backer. Have you tried that?

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

I think I would use individual strips of fiber and glue them on all at once. Much easier to make tight bends.

yep in the out side. have to have it or they tear every time. Keith is probably right. Bend them and lay them up one at a time

Have you tried wetting the fiber? not much probaly or they'll fall apart. I bend them around 1/4 pearl dots quite a bit.

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Tickle your guitar daily, and it'll tickle you back.

no, I did not figure that wetting the fiber would help but I will try tonight

Michael, I once boiled some fiberboard and the 1/4 x .010 stuff would bend around a pencil when I was done. Might give that a try.