Misadventures in side bending

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Neil,
If you DID bend two left sides, as long as the sides are not pre-profiled you can resand the top edges flat, and then do your profiling of the back of the rims. (the taper as you called it). Also, if the sides are pretty generic, and don't have particularly obvious indentifying bookmatched grain/color/markings, then no one is going to be the wiser.
It sounds like you are alright with what you ended up with.

Kevin

[nkwak]

I hope you're right, Kevin. The sides are in fact pre-profiled though. I'll have to take a closer look at them next time I'm over at my friend's workshop - and take some scrap wood, a t-square and a level to make sure.

[tippie53]

if the sides are bent wrong you can rebend them . Use a hot steam iron get the sides to loosen then rebend in a bender. I have done it more than once

[nkwak]

if the sides are bent wrong you can rebend them . Use a hot steam iron get the sides to loosen then rebend in a bender. I have done it more than once

Thanks. I heard as much on the ASIA youtubes. If things are messed up I may indeed do that.

[nkwak]

I got to work on my build over at my friend's house and took a good hard look at the sides in the mold. They are in fact shaped correctly but are not bookmarked anymore. When I cut the profiles I marked a line at the waist that I intended to be face up in the bender but somehow one of my sides got bent face-down. I guess I'll have to paint it black! LOL!

BTW, my home made mold has been working out pretty good but has still been problematic. I made it so that it's about 3.5" deep which is good for the neck joint but that means that there's almost 2" exposed at that tail joint. Long story short, the sides were overly prone to cracking when I went to glue in the blocks tonight. It's not pretty but I figure with some sanding and extra reinforcement you won't be able to tell that the sides were split. *crosses fingers*

Live and learn. For the next build I'm going to have to re-engineer my mold to take into account the overhang.

[Ken Hundley]

Sorry to hear about the troubles. In fact, I think you want some overhang. I prefer to have some of the guitar showing so that I can clamp in the kerfing while the mold is on the guitar. It will be very difficult to clamp anything if the mold is the same height as the guitar all the way around. You may have to change your clamping approach for clamping the blacks instead.

[nkwak]

Every looks good enough to proceed. There was still some breakage toward the ends but I was able to trim the ends and glue in the end blocks. Any open cracks in the sides are now backed by the end blocks and hopefully stabilized:



Next up is kerfing.

EDIT, BTW those are my friend's clamps. His kids bought and decorated them for him for Christmas. He's a lucky guy and a great tutor. In fact, if it weren't for him I wouldn't even be attempting this.

[Tony_in_NYC]

I like the clamps. My son decorates everything he gets his hands on but so far most of my stuff has escaped his artistic streak. Its good that your buddy moved from building in his kitchen to a real workshop that you can take advantage of!
I like this guitar shape. Its the OLF MJ, right? I may have to build me one of these some day.

[nkwak]

LOL, Tony. Kitchen's his name. He's always worked in his separate garage that he uses as a photography studio but divided to make little workshop in the rear. He's been talking about getting a dedicated space for it elsewhere though; photography is his bread and butter. Building is just a newfound addiction for him.

Yup, that's the OLF MJ. I'm using WR cedar over Honduran mahogany meant for a Martin 15 series. I'm hoping it sounds as good as a Taylor GS5.

[Tony_in_NYC]

Well, I'll be. I just figured he started in his kitchen!
His chosen profession is a nice compliment to the building bug. One thing I always wish I could do is take better pictures of my finished guitars.
Your wood choices should make for a fine guitar and I hope you find the sound pleasing to your ears. I am almost certain you will.