Printable View
As noted in my previous thread I am considering making a pair of guitars. When I first made a few, perhaps 40-50 years ago, I bent the sides following the instructions in Irving Sloane's book. The results were problematic. Since I am only planning to make 2 guitars I wonder what are the most reasonable, in terms of effort and price, method of bending the side. But more important than price and effort is likelihood of good results. I'd appreciate any and all thoughts. Thanks -Howard
Use only quarter sawn wood. Form can be used . Or a large diameter steel pipe section heated with a torch. I see the Sloane process as
the only way a book on guitar making could bring success for a beginner whose only guide is a book. I think two pieces of thin veneer
could be laminated on the form, instead of the traditional method.
The shop I worked in uses a homemade Fox style press and forms with a Watlo heater connected to a variac. The wood is dipped or soaked in water and the waist is bent on an oval shaped heating iron before the side goes into the press.
*Bending machine for guitar sides - Price starts at:
Zach Hoyt made a lovely guitar shaped octave mandolin last month. Hopefully he will chime in.
Maurice, that's very kind of you.
I bend sides on a hot pipe. For guitars I bought a 6" long piece of 3" diameter pipe and put a bolt and two nuts in one side. I mount the bolt in a vise to use it, and put a propane torch turned on low inside the pipe. I wet the wood in the area I'll be bending and re-wet it as soon as it steams out to dry. I am not particular about the grain orientation, other than trying to avoid runout which makes the wood break easily. For mandolins and fiddles I use 1-1/2" pipe, also for cutaways and such. I use a mold made out of OSB for each body shape, and clamp the sides in the mold overnight after bending. Best of luck with your builds.
Maurice, that’s how I did mine, but the pros just stand there and steam and bend. I made one guitar …and gave away the form .
The prices for the ‘store bought’ form are astounding! I put the ensemble in a small room with a heater ,and a hope that I wouldn’t
burn the house down.
These are for A style Mandolins. A reliable way to monitor and regulate the heat is helpful. There are species specific tricks and pitfalls. Curly Maple is difficult and easily discolored by steam and too much water.
Attachment 500616
Those molds look nice, and I'm sure they work very well. My problem is that I routinely make 3 or 4 kinds of flat top guitar, resonator guitars, archtop guitars, fiddles and mandolins, so I wouldn't have money for all the heated molds that would require. With a pipe you can make any shape, and if you practice for a little while on scrap wood you can get the temperature, timing, and amount of force dialed in. It's very enjoyable work, when it goes well, and when it doesn't it's still educational.
If you have access to the book Guitarmaking: Tradition and Technology, by Cumpiano and Natelson, you will find good information on how to put together a bending iron. If you are going to build just a few guitars, that will be less expensive than buying a commercially available side bender. If you build your own bending iron, I recommend experimenting with scrap for a few tries before trying to bend your “keeper” sides. Bending by hand is about feel, so you need to develop that feel. Bending by hand is one of my favorite things about building guitars. The book is a pretty valuable resource. Some consider it to be dated, but I find it to be a great resource, even though I now do many things differently from how the book describes those processes.
I have a bending iron and a steam box. Steam bending is IMHO, the easiest if you are already set up for it and have a form.
If you are "only" planning to make 2, you should consider just buying pre-bent sides from LMII. Their quality is great. You'll have more choice. Comparing their price to the effort required to do it from scratch, it's a very good option. They also have a ton of other parts like kerfing and fingerboards, soundboards and roesettes in materials you may not have on hand. They can even pre-thickness and joint the backs and fronts. It saves some of the 'grunt' work.
I suggest you buy the cello-sized electric rib bender from Metropolitan Music in Stowe, VT. Be sure to also get the thin metal bending strap. Experiment with scraps, then work on your guitar sides. It's not so difficult, and their benders are reasonable. Good luck!
My very limited experience, based on a basic Mandolin building class with Rick Turner, and a pair of scaled down 'Les Paul' profile guitars built as 'Fender' flat body/necks for my nephews.
I got real ambitious about building some acoustics, bought plans and the heat bending mat/power supply from LMII, as well as way too much wood ...
I made my own bending fixture and molds. One set I bent, not sure of the wood now, no matter how much I cooked them, they sprung back a huge amount. Stuffed them in the mold and clamped them up, and they probably sat there for a couple years at least. Took them out and they sprung back *A LOT*.
I the mean time, I ran across a Luthier interview in Fretboard Journal. Asked why he uses a hot pipe to form sides, he said, more or less, that starting with the shape he wants, or at least pretty close, during glue-up results in a Guitar that requires massively less time to 'play in' then one that's forced to shape and needs the vibration of playing to relax it. There was a comment that it doesn't really matter what the exact shape is.
I filed that away in the back of my mostly empty head. I don't know if I'll ever get back to making an acoustic at this point, but I doubt I'd bother finishing up the molds to 'force' the shape I'm looking for. Or at the least, I'd hot pipe them a whole lot closer first.
Ran into Rick a couple years later at a 'picnic' at Gryphon in Palo Alto. He was talking to someone, and made a comment about 'knowing people', along the lines of 'having friends in high places' ... "I've got high friends in places" ... LOL! Quite the character.
As long as I'm typing ... anybody looking for nice wood sets? There's way too much stuff in boxes here.
Offer them up in the Classifieds here...you never know!Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Grass
With the hot pipe I find that if I get the wood close to the shape I want and make sure it's wet again after bending before I put it in the mold I get little to no springback. What tends to happen to me is I bend the waist first, then the upper bout and then the lower bout. Often I unbend the waist a bit in the process of bending the other sections and have to re-bend it to get the proper shape. I think the mold is more for keeping the wood from cupping and twisting while drying than to create the bends. It just keeps the bends in place and the wood flat the other way while the wood dries and stabilizes.
Another thing is not to leave the wood out of the mold for a long time before putting it together. Once a long time ago I did that with a fiddle and after a few weeks out of the mold the pieces did lose their bends partially. Now I am working regularly enough to avoid that.
Thanks everyone, I appreciate the help. It will be a little while before I get going on the guitar project. I have a big padouk board with pretty straight grain and very little run-out that will eventually become a pair of guitars. Again, thanks. -Howard