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after bending my 1st sides by hand on an home-made bending iron, and being surprised how easy it turns out to bend EIRW (and burn your fingers in the process as well...) i´m curious: do you guys bend manually preferably? if so, any tips worth knowing? and are the heat blankets helpful to this setup?

thanks in advance,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Try this method:




I stole the idea from the machine benders. It works well on EIR, a bit too well on Maple. It's the foil that helps to keep both the heat and the moisture contained.
The foil gets very hot. Wear gloves if you decide to try it. Test on scrap first.

I've done all my bending by hand (10 guitars so far) not so much preferably, but more because the bending blanket and machine have been a bit pricey for something I can get done through other means. I haven't had any trouble with mahogany, walnut, rosewood, or maple. Ebony gives me the chills - I've split more binding strips than I care to admit - but that's probably not just the wood. Binding strips are devilishly hard (for me) to bend by hand, even when marrying a number of them in a line.

Foil's good - I've also experimented with craft paper with foil on the outside, and I think I like that a bit more. I tend to bend sides wetter than those who use a blanket and machine, and it generally works, but can be tough to get the curves perfect (for me at least) and I do experience springback. So I'll bend, then clamp in my form for a day or so, which tends to limit the springback.

At the end of the day, I think having perfectly bent sides is pretty important. Subtle bumps and flat spots end up looking pretty amateurish, and mean lots more sanding after gluing up the sides. Whether it's by hand or by using the bending machine, I do think it's important to get those sides bent as close to your template shape as you possibly can. I'm still perfecting my technique (and probably will continue doing so for many moons ...

I've always bend by hand. I have yet to try a side bending machine but may build one some day. I am not very good at hand bending but I do actually enjoy doing it and have gotten better over the years. I've always avoided molds and bending jigs to be more free to change the design but then I tend to stick to about 3 designs these days so I probably could do with a mold and bending machine.

Cant say I really have any helpful tips other than check your bends closely. And when moving from the hot pipe to the template to check the bend keep the bend under pressure and you can still actually bend it a bit hold it till it cools if it's on the mark.

I have a blanket, a controller, and a form, but still bend by hand on a homemade pipe bender. I can be bent and stable before I could get the bender set up! One of these days. maybe. Bend as dry as possible. A damp/wet rag on the pipe when bending the waist will help keep scorching down on the outside side surface on that bend. Go slow, and wait for the wood to respond.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I bend on a pipe and THEN put the sides in a Fox style bender with a heat blanket. The fox bender helps take out some of the slight lumps and bumps that hand bending introduces, reduces ripple, and insures uniformity between the two sides.

M

Keep it rocking or sliding and you'll get fewer flat spots.

I did the same on my current project. I have found that I like bending by hand better, but since I had the blanket and made the form, I cooked the bent sides to help insure they matched. It wasn't really necessary since you can get them pretty much perfect with the pipe, but then I didn't have to do more tedious touch-ups.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

I started with a blanket and a form but now I use a hot pipe. I like the pipe better because I'm just a hobby builder and I don't make the same model over and over again. Plus, I love the feel of the wood when it bends

Thanks for the input. I curved it dry, but used a little spritz of water on the parts i got more trouble with (the waist and to get the lower bout to curve gracefully - honestly i didn´t thought this last one would be so tedious). Might try the foil method next time, seems promising.

One more question: does cypress bend well? i´m thinking of going flamenco for my 2nd effort.

thanks,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes

Oh Cypress is lovely to bend. You shouldn't need foil for that. Just protect the waist area from too much heat - I use printer paper between the iron and the side. It just helps prevent stains and heat marks on light coloured wood like Cypress and Maple.
Do you have a spring steel backing strip? It can be useful at the waist area and helps support the wood fibres.

thanks, that´s good to know. i have a backing steel plate and it came in handy.

cheers,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I guess I'm an oddball. I actually love using my fox style bender I got from John Hall. I watched his youtube videos, and it looked like fun, so I got one.

I like walking the feet down the bouts, and also the way the hand crank feels when I crank it down. Then I let it cook for a half hour at 250 degrees, I love the smell of the wood as it bakes. I bent some flame maple bindings last night, they smell like popcorn to me.

I also like monitoring the temperature with the little meat thermometer that came with the unit.

I kinda feel like a chef.

Whenever I've bent flame maple bindings by hand they've either split or had facets which made it more time consuming to glue to guitar.
As far as I'm concerned, the two metal slats are miraculous. My binding goes right into the channels, no humps or bumps.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

Just one more thing, if you have the time:where do you guys start? i started at the upper bout, as i had the insertion in the neck worked out first, but maybe getting the waist right first is a sensible option.

cheers,
miguel.

_________________
member of the guild of professional dilettantes

I made this video a few years ago, it seems to have been quite helpful to some people. I made a couple of others too, filmed at different angles so you can get more of an idea. If you really watch closely, and a few times, you may well learn a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jf8J6rt6ng

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NMxMO93v8s

nigel

http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/nkforst ... _book.html

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nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com

I was just going to mention your video Nigel. Excellent stuff. I'm also glad someone else mentioned difficulty with bending bindings by hand. I wasted some nice pieces of snakewood that way (ouch!).

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

here is another one -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm420mtesnU

The camera angle shows pretty well the process of heating the side on the flat part of the bending iron with one hand then bending it on the radiused part of the bender with the other. It really isn't all that difficult and just takes a bit of practise. I tend to avoid wood that looks like it may cause me a problem, I've found slab sawn wood more likely to ripple, and if a piece of wood is very expensive and looks like it may be a little trouble it's sensible to let it have a little soak in the bath in hot water with a little fabric softener added for about 20 mins.

The other thing I do which apparently you shouldn't is I run the bender hot,(how hot I've never known) we always did this at the Sobell workshop - when you work hot, you do have to work quick - in the first few seconds the resins dormant in the wood melt and make it rather pliable, this is the time to work, as my experience has shown that after this initial "melt" it can all become rather hard work. With a bit of practice a side should take no longer than 10 minutes. Get it as close as you can the first time, let it rest overnight and make any corrections the next day.

For figured woods like flame maple I make two changes: I sand all the burnt rosewood resin off the bender! I also use a steel back strap to prevent cracking - it works well.

Hope this helps.

http://www.nkforsterguitars.com/nkforst ... _book.html

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nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com

I always start at the waist, although I guess you can start anywhere if you develop your skills. Hand bending can get pretty quick with experience, it's almost like the longer you take the harder it becomes. That's partly because the more heat you apply the drier and more brittle the wood becomes. Too far and you are best leaving it overnight to regain some moisture and flexibility.

Thanks again for the replies, lots of good advice!

cheers,
miguel.

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member of the guild of professional dilettantes