Official Luthiers Forum!

As with most beginners with some disposable income, I have purchased many tools that perhaps I would have thought twice about given some time / experience.
I purchased the lmi bender, but wish I would have started out simple; basics are good right? : )

So here I am with an lmi Christmas gift certificate burning a hole in my dresser and I think that I would like to purchase a bending iron.

Propane vs Electric - feel free to let loose, I'm all ears.

Thanks for your time.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

I like my propane bender, piece of 2" aluminum heavy wall with a piece of flat stock welded on so you can clamp in a vise. very handy for bending recalcitrant pieces for rosettes

Same as Clinch for hand bending, I have 3" pipe and a piece of angle AL bolted to it for holding. But most of my bending is done with electric blanket and shaped form. The pipe is just for touch up etc.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

We use this shop made bender almost every day -- cost about $45 Buy some nice tone-wood from LMII. Or at least something you can't make yourself.

http://acousticguitarconstructionforum. ... ?f=8&t=794

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I'm bending with a blanket now, but I still use my homemade bender on every guitar, for bending purflings for rosettes and for touching up bent sides for a better fit. I built my first 13 guitars using the bending iron. Simple to make. I used a piece of truck tail pipe from AutoZone, cut it in half, slit a 1/2" slot out of the second piece, squeezed it into the other piece for some extra thickness, stuck a jar lid in the business end(close to my tummy), mounted it to some scrap wood, and stuck an electric charcoal lighter, from Home Depot, inside. Total investment, maybe $25. Then I invested in a Harbor Freight Router Speed control for controlling heat levels, and put a hole in the pipe and stuck in a grill thermometer. Total cost, probably in the $50 range.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

If you're going to buy one, get the egg shaped electric one. No sense buying expensive round pipes when you can get them for free from muffler shop scrap bins. Mine is 3" fairly thick walled steel, mounted to a board with L brackets/nuts/bolts/screws. Add $15 for an electric charcoal starter, and you're good to go... assuming you have a vise to squash it in so it will fit in the pipe. Propane torch works too, but is more dangerous and noisy.

I'd save that LMI money for other stuff. Fretwire, bridge pins, nut/saddle blanks, tuners, hide glue, binding tape, reamers, nut slot files (the expensive single ones, not double sided).

I use a home made one out of 2 1/2" black pipe from the plumbing supply. I had them thread one end and attach to a home made mount with a pipe flange. I stuffed a electric barbecue charcoal starter in it, I squashed it down to fit it in there. It works better then the stew mac one that I used to have. Gets hotter and has lasted way longer then the element in theirs.You can use a router speed control to adjust it down if it gets to hot.

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Another day, another dollar.

I use the Ibex electric bending iron. I pretty much do all my bending with it.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

For the sake of completeness in this thread and in case you aren't interested in building your own hot pipe, the egg-shaped LMI pipe is quite nice (and pricey). The range of radii provided by the shape of the pipe is very useful, especially for making smooth transitions between tight curves of different radii like from the waist to the upper bout on a curvy body and from the cutaway (Venetian) tip through the cutaway curve.

Personally, I much prefer electric to propane. No open flame, no noise, no buying of propane, and no having to keep track of whether I have enough propane around.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I use a blanket and side bender for sides and wood bindings, but a pipe is useful for other things. I built one a long time ago, but I bought a used commercial one about a year ago, and I like it a lot. Whether you build or buy, I find the egg profile to be pretty important.

I just squashed the pipe oval on my shop built BBQ lighter pipe.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Colin -- I think your bending pipe is very nice -- but I have to say dodging those tabs and pop rivets holding on the end cap would absolutely drive me crazy. A big wad of aluminum stuffed in the end will retain and hold in the heat leaving a nice smooth pipe without obstacles -- just an observation.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Probably twenty or more years ago, I took a walk down through the local scrap yard and found a piece of 3" copper pipe. I doubt you will find any more of that nowadays. My plumbing supply house outfitted me with some step-downs and I bought a length of one-ince pipe at the hardware store. At that point, I had less than five dollars invested. I rigged up a 250 watt light bulb on a rheostat as a heat source. It has worked ever since. Whenever the lightbulb burns out, I will need to switch to an electric charcoal starter for a heat source.

Thanks everyone.

Basically what I'm taking away from this is:
- don't buy what I can easily make (primarily propane solution)
- if I'm going to buy go electric with lobe-shape iron

Always enjoy reading about the experiences of others. Thanks again.
Gregor

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

Got over 8" useable length, so no problem here.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I'm sure the egg shaped ones that LMI and others sell will allow you to bend most any side shape. My home made bending contraptions are not that nice, and since I make both mandolins and guitars, I have two different ones that cover those shapes. One is made from 4" steel pipe with a welded on flage, and one made from 2" pipe, both squashed somewhat oval. I use a charcoal heater via a light dimmer to control the heat. I have tried regular round pipes, but I find them less versatile and more difficult to use.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

Thank you Arnt.
When using a charcoal starter, are there some minimum specifications I should be looking for?
Will whatever I find at the BigBox shop work?
Is there a gauge (pipe) that works best.....advantages to either?
Gregor

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

Mine is 475W and it gets plenty hot. I folded it over and stuffed it in there, not much else to say. The big pipe has 5mm walls, the smaller one has thinner walls, so it does not distribute the heat as well. Thicker walls are definitely better

Sent fra min SM-G920F via Tapatalk

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I built mine using a toaster oven from a dumpster, and some u-bolts and exhaust pipe from an automotive store.

A toaster oven from a dumpster? Oh, I dream of having one of those.

I rub two sticks together to start a fire inside a rusted out exhaust pipe I extracted from a snow covered FIAT in a wrecking yard, after hours, in the middle of winter in Michigan while fighting off two junkyard dogs with spiked collars. I shaped the exhaust into a nice oval profile while fending off the dogs by sticking it one of their mouths. I duct taped it onto a Pontiac hub cap I grabbed on the way out which serves as a base to hold the dried twigs and leaves that are the fuel which I spend several days collecting enough of to be able to bend a single side (no cutaway). Total cost? 0$!

Builds character!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo

Seriously, I admire the ingenuity of the designs from everyone who has built their own bending iron.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Yep, anything that can light charcoal should be enough to bend wood. Mine is 500W, which is pretty excessive. I used a dimmer switch at first, but the buzzing noise it made was irritating so now I just plug and unplug periodically to regulate the temperature.

Larger diameter makes it easier to heat large areas of the wood evenly and get smooth bends. Smaller lets you make tighter bends.

As far as round pipes go, 3" is good for most guitar work, but too big for venetian cutaways and some tight florentine cutaways and waists... though it is possible to get tighter bends than the pipe diameter by heating the wood and then pushing inward from both sides to bend it up off the pipe. A 3" pipe squashed into an oval shape should be more versatile. 2.5" squashed would probably be even better.

I'm assuming you should try to match pipe and element dimensions closely, but are you free to bend the element every which way in order to fit it into the pipe?
Is there resulting damage from bending?
Going to look through the "pipeyard" today to try find something suitable.

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Wake up and smell the rosewood!

It seems you can bend the elements pretty much how you please, at least the one I bought was pretty soft. Not sure how much it takes to damage one, they seem pretty robust. Only one way to find out I guess... Like I said, just stuff it in there, the pipe will get hot, mission accomplished.

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

What Arnt said!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars