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Joe Sustaire wrote:the monthly lottery

What's that?

Hey whiskey, a while back we were having monthly lotteries for tonewood from Grant. Buy a ticket, get in on the drawing. Haven't had one for a while, but look for it to start up again.

And John, I think you've got the right read on what happened to that one side bent with the blanket on top. Makes perfect sense.

I went back to putting the blanket under the top slat and bent an orphan side just fine. The slats did make an oil-caning sound as I bent the upper bout and I was afraid that there would be a crack, but got lucky. Anyway that firmed up Grants opinion that the open form I'm using isn't giving good support thru the bend, so I went in and added some dowel rods to support the upper and lower bouts.






And I also switched to springs instead of the eyebolts to get smoother action on the upper bout bend.




So I found a couple of extra African mahogany sides, sanded them to .085", shaped them, and bent them with the blanket under the upper slat, and success on both. Perfect bends.




So, it looks like I'm back on track with un-cooked wood. We'll have to see how it goes with the thermally treated wood down the line.


And hey Dennis..... look no dark spots. And if you look at the shop floor in the pics you can see I sure as heck haven't cleaned the shop. So I wonder if it is something in the Downey or SuperSoft?

Yay!

and, yeah, maybe it is a chemical reaction with something in the wood - maybe just localized concentrations of minerals?

Way to go, Joe. I sanded some black limba sides Tuesday and gave them the Downy treatment. Will try to find time to bend them today.

BTW, love your shop and floor...makes me feel right at home

G

Nice shop floor, I have the same bucket of sticks in mine. Now if I can convince my wife that yours is normal and mine is actually clean I am in business. Glad you got the bending figured out.
Chris

Glad I can make you guys feel comfortable!

Well I decided to see if those cooked sides with cracking can be saved. So I had two un-matched orphan sides I'd bent successfully and decided to laminate them to the cooked sides. Aside from the cracking they were also thin so.....



I glued them up and clamped them into the mold, one side at a time.




And wound up with some very sturdy, stable sides.




Now hit the cracks with some water-thin CA and a bit of sanding and they gonna be all right.




End blocks glued in, making a very ridged rim set.




Sanding the top of the rims to a 12' radius on my 12' radius sanding block.




And the obligatory kerf glueing shot.

All for now.....

Brilliant solution with the sides, Joe.

Bob Connor (of ANZLF fame and fortune) did this once and was amazed at the increase in the guitar's voice. I think he now always laminates his sides.

Just as a test, I tried cooking the bent side that cracked badly before I got my bending problems figured out. I didn't have an oven thermometer so I may have well over cooked it. Set oven at 400 degrees, put side in while oven was cold, lit and cooked for 50 minutes. When it cooled off it matched the color of the cooked top nicely, but seemed to have lost some of it's bend at the waist, trying to set it back into my mold it cracked badly.





So as you can see this does for sure make the wood more brittle.


Here's my rim-set....





And being held by my friendly shop helper......


On to bracing the top.....





And all the bracing in place ready for carving, except for the popsicle brace.
As you can see I cracked the top a little at the bottom just handling it. Repaired with a little CA thin and it should be good. But damn, this stuff is fragile.....

All for now.......