Touch up bending in mold with blanket

[mikewaz]

I thought I'd share my experience with touching up sides in a mold using a heating blanket...

After bending my sides in a form with a heat blanket, I could see that they needed a little touch-up. Unfortunately, I was a little over zealous on the pipe. I made things worse, instead of better. I wasn't sure what to do. I put the sides back inside my mold. Under tension, in the mold, things didn't seem too bad, so I moved forward and glued up the tail and neck blocks.

It wasn't until these were in place that I decided I couldn't move forward with the rim construction as-is. The sides where asymmetrical and the shape was odd looking. I thought I might need to buy new sides, but in a last ditch effort, I decided to try the heating blanket within the mold. (I have the KMG MegaMold.)

It worked great! The sides are now perfectly shaped.

The wood slats you see in the photos below were a quick and simple way of adding tension where I needed to re-shape the sides.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

very interesting technique. Glad it worked out for you