Bending wood binding

[Mitch]

I need to bend curly maple binding for a dread (stew Mac kit). I've been reading lots of past posts here about bending wooden bindings want to know what you think of this approach:

Slim the wood down from 0.08 to 0.07
Spritz with water
Bend on hot pipe with flexible metal backer (would an old tape measure work?)
Clamp to a mold until it cools.

I ordered 6 pieces, so as long as I don't screw up more than 2 I'm ok

Will it work?

Mitch

[Dave Sayers]

I've only bent a few bits on a bending jig but it worked well. For my latest guitar I packed 8 strips into the slats and bent over the body mold, no problem.
You plan is good and should work but why not cut or buy a few strips of thin wood and practice before you do it for real? I can tell you now that I did try hand bending a set of strips with a heat source and it took some practice.
I also bent two bits of thin hardboard to place bent strips between to keep safely in stock. That way I can bend spares and use them in the future.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Mitch,
I have bent indian rosewood, bloodwood and curly koa bindings by hand on a pipe. It is not difficult, but you have to go slow...too much pressure too soon and "crack"! What I did was place a wet rag on the pipe, and bent over that, keeping the rag wet, but not wetting the wood. Letting the steam and heat do the work. The rosewood was the easiest, the bloodwood was okay once I figured out that .080" was too thick. Taken down to .065" it bent okay, and I got it close then put in in a form as you are suggesting. The curly Koa was also difficult and I had some cracking issues.
I think that practice is a good idea but if you go slow you should have satisfactory results. Keep the wood moving, and the rag wet and feel the wood give as you apply pressure, don't force it.
Good luck and show us how it turns out.

Kevin

[B. Howard]

On this thread I show how I do my wood bindings on a hot pipe with parchment paper.The ones I bend here happen to be maple.
viewtopic.php?f=48&t=5824

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Well there you go, always more than one way to accomplish a task, and Rick has a whole lot more experience then I do at this.
and Brian too for that matter.

Kevin

[Kevin Sjostrand]

Thanks Rick, I hope no offense was taken, I didn't mean to direct any. I met you back in 09 at the Healdsburg festival, you are a great guy and I respect your work and your comments and advice and I appreciate both and I am very much a newbie builder at only 7 guitars under my belt.

And I have found you are right about heating up the wood on either side of the bend. I've found sliding the piece side to side over the pipe makes a huge difference.
I do use a fox style bender now, and THAT makes it much easier.

Kevin

[Mitch]

As you know, stiffness increases with the cube of the thickness so the thinner the better.

That relationship may have slipped my mind ;-)

So what is the preferred pipe or wood temperature to bend the wood? With water and steam present the temp probably wont get too far above 212 F.

Mitch

[tippie53]

I use a pipe on occasion . early I learned that not all woods like the same temp. As Rick points out high figure is a bit tricky. I did use a strap to bend and I even used an iron to add heat on both sides.

the smaller the piece the less heat you need.

[B. Howard]

I used to use a thermometer on my pipe, but now judge it by how water reacts when dropped onto it. For Maple bindings I want the water to dance vigorously, the drops almost jump off the pipe. Taping them in pairs and tightly wrapping them in the foil backed parchment helps support them as they bend.

[Mitch]

Thanks everyone for your generous advice and suggestions.

I learned about being patient, and keeping very light pressure on the wooden binding. When the wood reaches the right temperature you can feel it start to bend. You just got to wait for that magic moment when the wood seems to become plastic. I put each into a simple MDF form for about 20 minutes afterwards to sweeten up the shape. I also did some additional sweetening with the hot pipe after the chanel was routed to make sure I didn't get too much resistance when gluing it in.

Hot pipe from a heat gun and 3" HVAC duct. By adjusting the angle between the pipe and gun, you could get a wide range of temperatures from about 200 to 375 F. I did the bending when the surface was about 225-250 F.

DSCN2125.jpg

I did eight thinking some would be losers, but they were all OK. Final decision was based on wood color and figure.

DSCN2123.jpg

After scraping and sanding. (Don't even think about doing this without a sharpened scraper).

DSCN2151.jpg

Mitch