I spray it liberally on both sides then lean it up to dry over something absorbent. Sometimes a bit of color will run off but it's never been an issue. I let the sides dry overnight and bend the next day.

I've only used it on veneer. Mainly to get it flat. To do that I spritz it thoroughly then layer the veneer with paper towels and clamp it between pieces of plastic covered MDF. I leave it overnight then replace the paper towels, clamp it and leave it overnight again.

A shame you lost the beautiful BRW. Looking at the grain I'd have guessed it would bend easily, it might have had an invisible stress fracture from felling.

To be sure, for suspected difficult/tricky or expensive exotics sides I apply SS2 liberally, wrap in clingfilm then ulufoil to stop evaporation and leave overnight to soak in, although I know others just spray and go.
Unwrap, wipe with a paper towel and sticker, by the time your iron is hot they'll be surface dry - spritz as usual and go.

And do you bend totally dry? Or do you let the SS2 boards dry out real good then use water?

I might be able to salvage this wood for a mandolin. But I was also thinking I could use it for a guitar for myself. The break is on the 'lap side' of the guitar anyway and what I was thinking is I can rout a lap joint in each broken half and mate them up as close as possible and just carry on. Probably put a spruce backing strip on the inside. Thoughts?

Clamping the wood down is necessary when dealing with standard thickness veneer because it will curl up severely if left to dry in the wind. But there is no need to blindly follow the directions when using SS on guitar sides. I spray the sides and stand them up leaning against the work bench to dry overnight. Never had one warp from this process, but if it did, so what?

What you have there looks like a 'brash fracture'. If that's the case there's not much you can do about it.

Green wood tends to fail in compression, so trees have devised ways of making sure the wood stays in tension, even under moderate bending. One way is to pre-stress wood as it grows, so that each new ring line is in tension relative to the wood underneath. This can manifest itself as strips cut from the outside edge of a quartered piece bend away from the center of the tree. It can also make it very hard to cross cut a quartered plank by cutting in from the outside of the tree, and very easy when you cut out from the center.

Each new layer of wood going on in tension relative to the wood under it necessarily puts the old wood into compression. In large trees the weight of the bole plus the built-in stress near the center of the tree can actually exceed the compression strength of the wood. The wood structure can fail microscopically in compression. This is similar to 'wind shake' but not visible, since the damage is microscopic. In effect the wood is already 'broken', and will fail in bending as soon as you try. The result is the sort of 'brash fracture' you see there: it has broken off cleanly across the grain. I believe this is one reason the old boys used to leave those tall stumps behind: there's lots of stress built into the buttress.

I have noticed on wood, such as redwood, that is prone to this, that wood with this sort of built-in crush failure tends to have low long-grain stiffness, high density, and higher damping than usual. It rings like cardboard. Easy to check on.

If I had more of that wood, and was determined to use it, I'd be very inclined to sand it out really thin and laminate it onto something that you know will bend. With proper support you'd be likely to get away with it.

Since brash wood usually is relatively low in tensile strength, it breaks on the tension side before much deflection takes place, and hence little work can be absorbed before failure occurs.

I'd go with a butt joint, and backing strip made of side offcut. Glue the backing to one side, and then use masking tape to make a hinge so clamping the other side to the backing simultaneously squeezes them together. Here are some relevant photos of stuff I've done.

Once I was blind, but now I can see! It's a miracle! Thank you so much.