TIME TO BEND WOOD

I WILL CONFESS that I have been procrastinating a bit.  I will be bending wood that I have never bent before, Brazilian Rosewood and East Indian Rosewood.  Such fancy and expensive woods have me a little worried- plus I am going to use a new technique.  today I decided to try it out by bending small pieces to use as interior laminations for the side sound ports I am preparing to do.

Here is the heart of the new technique.  I was tipped off to this device by my guitar making friend George Thomas 

I bought it at Grizzley for about $25,00.  It simply controls the amount of electricity going to your electric equipment thereby slowing down an electric motor or in my case controlling the heat of my electric heat blanket used for bending.  It has two levels of control- Var and full.  I used it today for the first time and am delighted.  Turned to "VAR" (whatever that means)  with the dial turned all the way up the temperature rose to about 230 degrees but would go no higher.   Then I switched to "full" and  the temp immediately began to rise.  At 275 I switched it back to "VAR".  wood was bending well at that temp but not charring or burning.  I felt comfortable leaving at that setting for a while as the wood set to it's new shape.  

The head end of my bending device.  Here I am about to bend a short piece of a broken side into the upper bout bend where the side port will go

And here is the back end where I found a good place for my wife's candy thermometer to read.  It goes up to 400 degrees.  you never want to get wood that hot.
p.s. don't tell my wife.  

Here is the curve that I needed.  I will eventually cut this down to maybe a four inch length and use it to line the inside of a uke side to support the sound port wall.

Here is my home made bending device. Works just fine.  it receives and bends any uke side as the forms can be changed.  The tenor form or mold is presently in the press.

This is some of the gear you need for bending- Leather gloves and a block of wood- that heat blanket gets Ho-o-ot.
Maybe tomorrow I will take on the sides.