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I purchased a set of Monkeypod back and sides about 4 or 5 months ago from one of the usual tonewood vendors. When the wood arrived, it had a pretty good twist in the sides, and the back was bowed pretty bad. I assumed that it had just sucked up a lot of moisture on its journey to me. After about 3 months of sitting stickered in my build room with a little weight on it, there was little difference. I then put the sides between 2 pieces of mdf and clamped it to the work bench after I spritzed it with a little water, waited for a week, and then re-stickered. That was about 3 weeks ago. I got the sides out again last night, and the twist is coming back. The build room RH is steady between 38-40%.

What are my options here? I'm not sure how I would use it as it is, I don't think it would even make it through the drum sander properly to get it to the proper thickness. The back is still bowed as well.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
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United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Some wood just don't wanna be a guitar.
Might be a good experiment to see what happens though.

You can try heating it with your heating blanket and then clamping it to a thick flat substrate. Sometimes putting it through the drum sander will allow it to flatten out since it's thinner but I'd try option one first. If you go the drum sander route don't take it to final thickness.

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Ken Franklin
clumsy yet persistent
https://www.kenfranklinukulele.com

I had a piece of cocobolo recently with same problem,,,one half of the back was twisted...I used the heating blanket method mentioned here sandwiched and weighted, for the most part it came out flat...then ran it through the sander and ended up with a a pretty thin, but useable piece , came out to about .080 , braced accordingly ....

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MK5acoustics.com

I managed to flatten out a potato chip Brazilian Rosewood back pretty good with a heating blanket. You can pretty much just bend it straight often times.

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

Do you guys think a heat lamp, or a heat gun would do the same? I'm not at the level of having a heat blanket just yet.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
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United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Perhaps you could contact the tonewood vendor you got this set from and see if they will send you another one.

You can try a cloths iron to iron it flat.

The clothes iron, set on the wool setting, with perhaps some sort of padding underneath, is a very underrated tool.

Rick

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Rick

A clothes iron, I do have... That may be a really good idea.

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Jason McGowan
M&S Guitars
_____________________________
United States of America, looks like another silent night
As we're sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children....
Casting Crowns

Don't forget the Super Soft. Might just be the ticket. In fact, I bet you can do it without heat if you use Super Soft.

Mike