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I am planning to use a bwb, shell inlay, bwb purfling. i have the binding pieces bent and am going to use a teflon strip as a spacer for the shell. My question is do I have to pre-bend the bwb fiber strips? I seem to think so because they seem awfully stiff. These aren't individual strips, the bwb fibers strips are one piece. Will these bend on a bending iron? If soaking them will loosen them up how is the glue going to stick to them if they are wet? I plan on using Titebond to glue them in.
Thanks for any advice.

If you pre-bend them approximately to shape, you'll be fine. Do it on an iron, no water. Takes seconds. You can flex them from there. It's a big flex (and a handful to deal with) trying it unbent when you're laying in four pieces together.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

No you do not need to pre bend.

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Michael F Smith
Goat Rock Ukulele
http://goatrockukulele.com

agree no bending needed

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

...until you read this bit of the puzzle.

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Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

I have never had trouble bending the purfling on the top and back plates, regardless of what forum I posted on. I have had issues bending side purflings to shape without heat on an OM so now I bend the side purfling alonf with the binding, which is what most people seem to do.

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http://www.CostaGuitars.com
PMoMC

Do you need to bend them? No. That said, I bend mine. Just makes things easier with fiber stuff. Plastic purf, not needed at all.

I either do it at the same time as the binding, or if something goes wrong (nah, that never happens) I do it on an iron. If using the bending machine with the binding, make sure not to go to tight. You are only doing this bend so not break things in tight areas, so not important to get the tightest bends.

I wet my purfling and tape it to the bending mold to give me an approximate shaping so I have no problems when installing. For rosettes I wet and wrap around a large can to get a close shape, I cracked a couple purflings before starting doing the cold bending.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
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I've seen purfling that had to be bent....the 1767 bwbw from stew mac (ukulele curves anyway)
Just bend it with heat. Watch out though...it can de-laminate so bend it just enough to flex it into position. If you have a problem rolling it when bending, I use a clothes iron on the bench to flatten it. It also helps to warm it up when fitting it onto the guitar