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Hi folks;
I just finished the plans for a new model guitar. Size is similar to an OM, but it has a sharp waist & tight Venetian cutaway.
During my trial runs, I'm having a bear of a time forming the tight curves without cracking. (Fox bender, heat blanket with temp control. Sides at .085", thinned to .075 or so in the cutaway area)
I tried seven sides & used from 165 to 210 degree C. I tried a light spritz (Bad) right up to a real soaking. At 210 & a heavy soaking, I got the best result, but a little bit of scorching on the Maple.
I'd like some advice on which kind of wood is likely to take the tight bends without too much thinning.
I have tried it so far with the only "throw-away" wood I have,flamed Maple (OK... bad choice) & some Yellow Sirus (similar to Hond mahogany but had a fair amount of runout) & the results are not pretty
I know that runout will be a big issue, no matter what the species.
I've got my eye on some very nice Sapeli (sp?) Ed Dicks has advertised on his site. I haven't tried Sapeli yet & don't know what its bending properties are.
I lent out my bending iron, so haven't tried doing the bends manually yet.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,   Dan

Sapele is pretty easy bend, Walnut bends very easily, if its not too figured, just bend with a spritz of water as it will cup badly if wetted too much.

East Indian Rosewood, in my very limited experience, bends like a dream. Plastic, easy, spritz of water and you're golden. Quite a bit easier than the African Mahogany (Khaya) I've bent. I'm looking forward to bending the Walnut I've got, too, as everyone I know describes the plainer stuff's bending properties as 'like plastic'.

Dan, If you are looking for a light colored wood, Oregon myrtle, AKA California bay laurel bends like warm plastic.

BTW I will get your wood out of here as soon as I get this latest guitar done, whichshould be soon.

Grant

165 to 210 degrees? Sound like that's on the cool side to me.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

Dan, in my limited experience, ive bent Indian, sapele, mahogany, koa, black acacia, cocobolo, and Pau Ferro, and to me the Pau Ferro bent the easiest, least resistance. One note, I thin my sides to .080 some times thinner, maybe .075 before bending.

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Lance@LuthiersForum.com

Wait! You are talking celsius..... cancel what i said about heat... I have no idea how hot 210C is but it must be darn hot.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

EIR bends really easy.
If it's really 165 to 210 C it's way too hot and if you get really hot in side bender you can break sides.
I'd try abot 120 C (250ish F).
Maple should be fine also, just don't over soak.
I preheat my bending slats to 250ish F and then insert the wood and bend. Takes all of about 2 minutes. Then get the heat back on it to set it.
Good luck

Jim_W38788.6534837963

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Hi Daniel,

I think your first problem is too much heat - 165 C is 329 F - you will NEVER need more temp than that. I bend at more or less 300F, which is 149 C. You will find that too mcuh heat is drying out your wood too rapidly, causing it to get brittle and crack - I discovered when I went fomr a variac to light dimmer on my blanket in the fox that I was getting about 10 volts more with the dimmer - that translates into 25-30 degrees, and all of a sudden things started cracking on me. Lowered the dimmer and thus the heat, and no everything is bending fine again. I did the same thing with my hot pipe element - dropped the temp and now instead of 15-20 minutes to bend a cutaway, its more like 6-8, adn Ic an bend way tighter - at 90 thou I can wrap EI rw around a 2 inch pipe in about 4 minutes - before it would likely crack on my first and take way longer.

As for easy bending woods, EI rw, cherry and walnut are about as easy as its gets.

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

Myrtle for sure!

I found of all the woods I've bent, that cocobolo bent the easiest and with the most success - i.e. less problems. East Indian was also very easy.
The worst I've bent was Ziricote, aka Mexican Crackwood.

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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."

Thanks Guys.
I'm beginning to suspect the temp readout on my bender control box, because to get the "popping" sound of the water evaporating that many folks have described, I need to crank the temp up from the 135 degree bottom end I calculated from a post on the forum. (I think it was from Bruce, who has a ton of experience)The one side I tried at 135 degrees hardly even dried out after a 14 minute bending cycle & a 10 minute drying cycle. The wood was still soft & dampish & the bends were a long way from set.
I have very limited experience with the blanket / Fox bender combination so I obviously have lots to learn yet.
I guess a known accurate temp guage is needed to confirm the guage on my control box.
The 210 degree attempt was an act of desperation, i know it's well above any recommended temperature.
I'll try one more side at 145 degrees with a light spritz & see what happens.
Wish me luck... & thanks for your helpful suggestions.
Cheers Y'all   Dan

Walnut. That stuff is so easy to bend, I swear I could bend it around a pencil.

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

I think one differance that's not taken into account on these bending temps that we so loosely toss around is the configuration of the set up. I know with my configuration I would have very scourced wood at 145C. I know this because it's happend. In fact yesterday I just scourced a set of spanish cedar lining very badly. But bent them at 250 f and they were .170 thick. I scourched them while I was setting them and them temp went a little high.
So be careful and don't give up.
I also wouldn't try to bring my sides out after a half hour and expect them to stay.Jim_W38789.0271412037

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Walnut I have found bent very easily on side bender and on pipe.
I bent some flamed Maple on sidebender ,after wrapping sides in tin foil and wetting with very little water they bend easily.
               Rick218

I have to wonder how everybody is reading their temperatures. Scorching wood at 250 degrees seems a bit far fetched. I expect that the temperature was actually significantly higher than that. I generally bend between 300 and 320F and have never had a problem. If you are just sticking a surface thermometer on the outside, you are not measuring the temperature of the wood. The system that I use, from Tom Durr, reads directly from the thermocouple in the blanket. In fact, I just set the desired temperature on a dial and the system keeps it at that. Very simple, accurate, and I can dial in any temperature that I want.

I use minimal water, just a light misting before I wrap the sides. I put the wrapped sides and the blanket inside the spring steel slats and my forms are metal.

Grant