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OK so I'm not sure how many people remembered but I won that zoot set of Zircote some time ago that Bob "ZootMan" had graciously put up for auction. I'm now well in building guitars for healdsburg, and in fact am taking 3 day weekends so I can maximize my building time    .

So in the past few years I've bent my share of EIR, Koa, Walnut (love working with Walnut by the way), Cocobolo, Bubinga and various other woods...

BUT I have NEVER seen a more stubborn piece of wood than that Zircote, first I joined the back and sanded it down, before I could even get it braced up it called Frito-Lay for instructions on how to become a potato chip!!

So I dropped it in the sticker pile and let it think about what it had done (hey it works on my kids!!), A few weeks later I was able to glue it up and it seems stable now although it did crack along the grain (CA to the rescue)..

In the meantime I went ahead and thinned and bent the Zircote sides, once out of the bender I dropped them RIGHT into a mold and let them acclimate. So this weekend I'm doing rims getting them ready for the backs and tops, I bent 3 sets, Walnut, Bubinga and the Zircote...

The other two acted fine, but the Zircote didn't take to the bend very well, I was able to get it into the mold with a little pressure and trimming and it's not TOO bad but it still has a ton of springback to it. I did my standard bending routine and in fact cooked the Zircote a little longer than most, so now I've got it in the mold and I need to get it to relax in there, any ideas?? I can't really take it back to the bender, I was thinking of slipping a heating blanket in the waiste and cooking it some more to see if that would help.

I don't want to ruin it which is why I stopped to ask before I do something very stupid, I have had good success with Cocobolo that doesn't want to stay bent by rewetting parts of it and using a blanket on that part (doesn't happen very often).

To matters worse I started looking at the grain and thought I had reversed the grain but after sitting and comparing the edges for 10 minutes decided there is no good way to match them and my first instinct when I bent them was right.

I need a beer now...

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Paul, one of my Healsdburg guitars is Zircote and I didn't have any of the problems you are having (I had every other problem in the book with this guitar but alas all is well now) .
Do you really think it would be too hard to put it back in the bender? Is it blocked up already? I think that would be the best way to correct the situation. If you can get it back in there I would run several cycles of heat/cool/heat/ cool without taking it out.
I think if you take a heat blanket to the waist now it might just want to relax more and straighten out. What about a hot pipe?
I'd have to say that I'm glad this body is done. It's a frustrating wood to work with. Mainly because if you screw it up, you're out a lot of money. But it's worth it in the end.
BTW. what are you going to bind it with. I settled on Cocobolo. Maple was a bit too much contrast for my tastes. I was thinking about something light with a lot of interesting stuff happening like sycamore but I thought that might take away from the body. I'm pretty happy with the coco choice.
Hope it works out for you. Paul W.

Well, I had my share of problems with my HB Zircote set too. All is fine now though mine required a return trip to my bender for several cycles to minimize the springback. Hey guys we must have a Bob C reunion at HB will all of his fantastic wood being represented there.

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

Paul I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the ziricote. It can be very stubborn. Splitting along the grain is another common problem with ziricote. It does repair rather easily. I bent a pair of sides several weeks ago. I left each side in the bender and reheated several times then left it in the bender overnite. They turned out very nice. Why can't you put it back in the bender as Paul W. suggests? I also think thats your best bet and have done this before. As for the grain in the sides they are bookmatched and can only match one way. I hope it works out for you. It will be a beautifull guitar in the end.

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Ziricote is a stubborn wood! The first guitar I ever built was a ziricote/cedar SJ, and bending the sides on the pipe was a nightmare for me. Not the best choice for a first guitar. It seems to require more heat than some woods, and as Paul and Tim mentioned, more cycles couldn't hurt. I recommend keeping a big bottle of thin CA glue handy and flood the back and sides really well. there's a lot of stress in ziricote, and quite frequently it will open up on you unexpectedly. Sometimes that happens right after you buff out the finish. Sometimes it happens after the customer gets it. This is one of those woods where you need to make sure your customer understands the potential for hairline fractures is extremely high.

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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."

It's not fully blocked up yet, but it is fully trimmed for the mold and in place. I hesitate because it's pretty close now, I guess I could pull out the hot pipe and bend it that way, I've done it before with good results. It's the most stubborn piece of wood yet, I was a little worried about the bubinga but it bent fine, no cracks, no kinks and I just glued the tail block on... nice and easy...

How wet did you get it before you bent??, I gave it a good spritzing, I see Cumpiano is soaking his sets and that seems a little overkill to me but maybe that's what Zircote needs. I've had really good results up until this set, nothing special about the methods, I stick to what I know.. Stupid Wood

I haven't really decided on trim yet, I wanted to get the top and back glued on and see it in 3D before I decided, but I'm thinking flamed Koa would look good at this point. Maybe some Paua around the soundboard (a really thin stripe b/w/b/paua/b/w/b) to set it off, I also took some of the back and bookmatched it for the headstock and just got it back from Custom Inlay and it looks good.

But if *your* building a Zircote for healdsburg as well then I'm in big trouble , I'll just put mine at the back of my table and tell them I copied off you

Thanks

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

[QUOTE=Bobc] Paul I'm sorry to hear about your problems with the ziricote. It can be very stubborn. Splitting along the grain is another common problem with ziricote. It does repair rather easily. I bent a pair of sides several weeks ago. I left each side in the bender and reheated several times then left it in the bender overnite. They turned out very nice. Why can't you put it back in the bender as Paul W. suggests? I also think thats your best bet and have done this before. As for the grain in the sides they are bookmatched and can only match one way. I hope it works out for you. It will be a beautifull guitar in the end. [/QUOTE]

Thanks Bob, the funny thing about the wood is there is no solid bookmatch for that set, with alot of woods you can follow the pattern but this one doesn't seem to match very well. I had a hell of a time when I was bending it, making sure I had it right, I think it's just because the grain is so variable that even the book match is showing pretty big differences. I spend time checking the bookmatch and marking them for the waiste and orientation so it has to be right (haven't hosed one yet), it's just been a couple of weeks since I bent the set and I was being being picky

That being said I don't want to infer in any way shape or form that what you sent was not right, it was AWESOME!! and if anything I screwed up and swapped the ends. My wife and I both sat and tried to match the set just now and I think I might have gotten it upside down But it's just a guitar and the back is still killer and to be honest it's got SO much figure I don't think anyone will notice, besides even with the best match it wasn't that close.

It's ok though as this one is getting a pretty good side end graft so I don't think anyone will notice

And so now I'm off to the shop to pull out the bender and smack it again to see if I can get it to behave.

Thanks all...

-Paul-Sprockett38403.8779398148

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Paul,
You can't really put too much water on Ziricote but distilled water is probably best. I agree with Paul W. that if you can put it back in the bender and run it through a few cycles of heat/cold that should help. BTW what thickness did you bend it at? Also, before you put your plates on you might want to wet one side with naptha and flip it over and check ot for cracks, you will see the wet spots along the crack.

Thanks Brian I thinned it down to .90 which is about normal for me, sometimes a little thicker and sometimes a little thinner depends on the wood and how much flex it has, it's thin enough for sure. No cracks from bending that I could tell, I'll be adding a good number of side strips to this one before I'm done with it.

It's in the bender and cooking now, I gave it a good spritz before it went in, I'll let everyone know how it goes..

Thanks

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Well it turned out pretty good, I popped both sides back in the bender and ran three cycles of 10 minutes at a pretty high heat and then put a fan on them to let em cool. When I was done they held their shape fine, so that part's over with.

Then I sanded the sides down, I found a hairline crack on one side that ran for a while, it hadn't broke all the way though yet but would at some point so I grabbed some thin CA and filled every little thing I could find. To make matters more interesting this stuff bumps when it bends so I had to do some pretty agressive sanding on the drum to get them flat, got one area around the waiste thinner than I like but with some extra side strips it should be fine.

I'm just glad that's over with, the tailblock is in and drying and I'll do the heel tomorrow and then get all the side strips and kerfing in and take a DEEP breath....   

Thanks for the advice guys.

-Paul-

P.S. Woolson, how about posting some picks of yours??, I'll post some tomorrow once I get the kerfing on. We can call Paul & Paul Present Zircote

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

I too have had trouble in the past with Zirocote, mostly from splitting. The 3 piece back OM I made about 10 years ago cracked very badly but still sounds nice today. A small parlour guitar developed one small crack wich was easy to repair.
Bending the sides was no problem ,both having been bent on a bending iron. The Zirocote was cut localy from a piece of very wild looking grained wood and I have always put the splitting down to this fact.
I have one very large D size set ,had in shop for nearly 20 years but I am very reluctant to use it .
Regards rick218

Paul,

I have to agree with the concensus. I've only ever built with Ziricote once and had the same spring back problem as you did. I had to get this guitar right as it was for my wife's birthday! I found that putting it back into the bender after trimming, as has been suggested, for three or four cycles and taking it out at the end still hot (don't forget your gloves!) and putting into the mould and cranking the strainers up so that it cooled in the mould worked just dandy. It is now the method I use for all my bending.

ColinColin S38404.210162037

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

[QUOTE=Sprockett] Well it turned out pretty good, I popped both sides back in the bender and ran three cycles of 10 minutes at a pretty high heat
[/QUOTE]

I think you stummbled on the solution, "high heat." It seems the ziricote may need a little more heat than others

When I built this cutaway, I did not have the problems you guys are describing but the wood acted differently than what I was used to. I just spritzed the wood with water, (just to get good heat transfer.) The wood was stubborn, but then, once it reached tempature it became very plastic-like. It was really pretty neat, you could see the water go away and evaporate off the wood and then it bent great. It held its shape really well.

Oh Man that is just awesome John, have you had any cracking like reported by the other builders?? I love the depth of finish on that one... WOW!!!

This is the last time that I use it unless someone wants it really bad or I find a very very nice piece, and then I'm going to soak it in a vat of CA Glue before I touch it

Cheeers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Wow John now that is a beautiful guitar. You guys have scared me on the ziricote now though. So, just heat the crap out if it, spritz it and keep the CA glue bottle handy.....

Bruce I wouldn't let this post scare you away from ziricote. The have been many beautiful guitars built with ziricote and John O's beauty is a fine example. Some woods just need extra care and experience to handle these problems. Like John stated he didn't have these problems. This particular set may have presented some difficuties but I wouldn't apply that to every set of ziricote. Personally I feel that .090 is a bit too thick for ziricote. .080 would make a big differance IMHO.

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Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
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The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I wouldn't worry about it Bruce, I had a Koa set that gave me problems too and I love Koa, the figure on this wood is outrageous which means it's going to finicky...

Once I ran it through extra heating and cooling cycles it stayed put.

Bob I don't think .80 would have helped, it didn't crack while bending, nor was it hard to bend (it was pretty flexible before I dropped it in the bender) it just had a ton of springback and needed more heat than I gave it. I ended up with .80 on some of the areas once I was done sanding out the bumps anyway, it's really stable now

Do you have another set lying around by any chance??

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Paul I wish I did. Hard to get good ziricote. I'm glad it's working out for you. Don't forget to send me some pic's.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

Paul,

I think you have just gotten a particularly stubborn piece of ziricote. Here is a pic of one I have underway, and it bent fairly easily. I was more worried about getting the longitudinal arch (my boxes are deepest under the bridge) of the back happening without it cracking, but so far, so good.... (fingers crossed).



Now for some of Bob's bloodwood to wrap it in.... russ38404.6123958333

So here's the update on this...

Thre's no doubt I mis-bent one side (hey at least they lined up when I bent them)...

So Lance who is one of the nicest people you will ever want to meet is sending me a set of Zircote sides that he got from Bob and I'll re-bend those (correctly mind you) this week and be back in action.

So I can still say the wood came from the Zoot Man, as for the mis-matched set I figure I'll make a guitar after healdsburg with a cedar and sitka top and mis-match the other back set and keep it for myself...

Kudo's to Lance for saving me on this one....

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

That Lance is the best.

_________________
Beautiful and unusual tone woods at a reasonable price.
http://www.rctonewoods.com/RCT_Store
The Zootman
1109 Military Rd.
Kenmore, NY 14217
(716) 874-1498

I'll be selling a couple sets of ziricote in the near future, and I'm tempted to include a big bottle of CA with each set.

_________________
"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."

OK the wood is bent, in the mold, and I have the heel and tail block glued up and drying. Second times the charm, everything lined up this time, I made a number of changes to the way I bend sides and it worked really really well. I'll see about posting an article on what I do now, it's just about idiot proof.

Of course the Zircote cracked a little here and there but I had some CA handy and just kept 'zapping the cracks' (hmmmm.... sounds like a good name for a band, I'll have to submit that to Dave Barry). I promise to post some pictures tomorrow, my wife took the digital camera with her this weekend so I can only *tell* you how good it turned out until she gets back.

Lance really came through, this set actually matches the back perfectly and I think the guitar will look better with this set on it.

Cheers

-Paul-

_________________
-Paul-

Patriot Guitars

Paul, im glad they matched, I was wondering about that..
Glad to have helped

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