How wet should ebony binding be for hot-pipe bending?

[Toby Park]

I have some ebony strips to use as binding. 2mm thick, 6mm wide. This will be my first attempt at bending any wood, and being a budget DIY project I will be setting up a basic hot-pipe jig.

It seems that for general woodworking, soaking wood overnight before bending is the norm. However, I've heard others claim that a mere spray of water before starting is sufficient.

So what is the correct method? Would it be safer to soak the wood for longer or is it possible to have the wood too saturated?

Any whilst we're on the subject, any other general tips? This is completely new to me...

Thanks.

[Bob Gramann]

If I remember correctly, I usually bend ebony binding dry. At the most, I use a little spritz right before I hit the pipe. I often use a metal backing strap when I do ebony. Because it's so dark, it's hard see any grain runout until after the piece breaks--the strap helps to minimize the breaks. When it does break, the break often disappears if you can get it to fit tightly together when the binding is glued in place. Ebony dust mixed in glue can fill a crack so that it's invisible. Try to get your ebony no thicker than it needs to be before you bend it. Remember that as it goes around a tight curve, the bend will make it thicker. It bends a lot easier when it's thin. Enjoy.

[Brad Heinzen]

A light spray works for me. Ebony is one of the woods that gets lumpy and wavy when you add water. Also, 2 mm might be just a bit thick - ebony gets a lot easier to bend if you take it down to 1.7 mm or so.

[Nate Scott]

Everything they said. I think too wet is worse than too dry with ebony. I did one recently and it seemed like I got it too wet and it became sort of spongy in spots. I had trouble keeping it together where there was runout, though I was able to make it work with some minor repairs and fills with ebony dust.

[Trevor Gore]

...This will be my first attempt at bending any wood...

Ebony is not the easiest wood to bend, by a long chalk. I would suggest you practice on something a little easier (and more available) until you get your hand in. Ebony needs to be hotter than most woods to get a decent bend.

Straight grained maple is quite easy to bend, so is East Indian rosewood. Pick a wood local to where you are to make your practising less expensive.

[Simon Magennis]

Ebony binding is definitely tricky to bend. Some bits co-operate and bend easily enough but other strips will snap when you look at them. The good news is that it repairs more or less invisibly. As Trevor said, do practice on something else first. I would also recommend getting more strips than you need. If you think you need four, get six.

[John E Giarrizzo]

Ebony binding is definitely tricky to bend. Some bits co-operate and bend easily enough but other strips will snap when you look at them.

That's been my experience. In bending solid ebony violin purfling. The first time I did, bent easily. Got a new batch of ebony, nothing I could do would bend it successfully. Tried wet, dry, soaking in glycerin. Nothing worked.

[Simon Magennis]

Ebony binding is definitely tricky to bend. Some bits co-operate and bend easily enough but other strips will snap when you look at them.

That's been my experience. In bending solid ebony violin purfling. The first time I did, bent easily. Got a new batch of ebony, nothing I could do would bend it successfully. Tried wet, dry, soaking in glycerin. Nothing worked.

Maybe we should print up a T-shirt!

[Peter Wilcox]

http://www.veneersupplies.com/products/ ... ioner.html

I've never used this, but looks like it might help if you have problems. A thread about it here:
http://www.mimf.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1893

[Alan Carruth]

Super Soft helps.

Some ebony bends really nicely, and some won't bend: you won't know until you've tried. Generally I've had much better luck with Macassar than African or Indian.

More water makes wood easier to bend, but weakens the bond between the fibers, so you get more 'peeling' breaks where there's runout. That's why the rule on curly wood is 'more heat, less water'. There's generally enough moisture in the wood to bend it if you do it right, but the longer you work on it; the more you heat it up and drive the water off, the harder it is to bend and the higher temperature it takes. Eventually you get to the point where you're just scorching the wood and it won't bend. It helps to put the water on the inside of the bend only, since it peels lose from the outside. However, some woods, such as softer pieces of Honduras mahogany, will tend to crush more on the inside of the bend when they're wet. Sometimes you can't win: that's where the Super Soft comes in.

A back strap is a big help on any wood, but especially the ones that tend to split. Use a thin piece of soft aluminum that you can press right up on the surface and keep in contact all around the bend. I've had some luck on splitty woods gluing paper to the surface, either with Titebond III or CA; paper is tough stuff, and helps a lot in holding things together. You have to crape it off later, of course.

[Toby Park]

Thanks for all the replies so far,

It sounds like it might be a bit of a steep learning curve, but I'll take it steady and see how I do.

As a back up plan, I know this is totally cheating, but has anyone tried something like this? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/290935647784? ... 1423.l2649

To be honest it doesn't seem that much more of a cheat than using black plastic binding, and would hopefully look better than plastic too. At 0.5mm thick I would of course have to layer it up , so I don't know how it might look edge-on (i.e from the front face of the guitar).

[Chuck Tweedy]

Yikes! Don't use that stuff!! Black plastic binding from a lutherie source is MUCH better.
I've also used black Garolite (THIS) with great success. It is basically very hard black plastic.

[Rodger Knox]

Chuck is absolutly correct, laminating that stuff with it's mystery adhesive is not the best idea.
Not really a steep learning curve, actually it's pretty quick for ebony. Try to bend it, carefully. If it bends, you're done.
If it breaks, try another piece. Some will bend, some will not. It is possible to get a batch where they all break, or all bend.

[Chuck Tweedy]

It can get expensive if you can't repair the broken pieces and make it passable.

The other thing to do is to thin the stock you have. If the strips are currently at 2mm (~0.080") then I would HIGHLY recommend thinning them down to 1.5mm (~0.060).
It bends much easier at that thickness, and personally, I think it looks much better as well.

[Clay Schaeffer]

Black ebony looks pretty much the same as black plastic, and ivory looks a lot like ivoroid, they are not as tough as the plastics, but since they are so much harder to work with they must be better. The lower grade older guitars used wood bindings in place of ivory.
As others have mentioned, a saving grace of ebony is the ease of hiding breaks and cracks.

[Craig Bumgarner]

I use black fiber sheet (LMII) instead of ebony. My customers seem happy with it. Looks more like wood than plastic, seems tougher than either in terms of protecting the edges. It bends easily, even tight 1" radius bends. I bend it cold okay, but pre-bending with heat in advance makes the tensions a little less when installing. Glues easily, I use Titebond, but any wood glue will work in think. I glue accent purfling to the edge and the whole thing bends nicely with some heat. Relatively inexpensive. Used to buy sheets from LMII and rip my own, but recently bought a couple hundreds pieces cut to size from Gurian, which reduced my cost by about 70% and are closer in tolerance than I would normally do myself (win-win). Available in a variety of thicknesses, I use .080".

The only negatives I can think of are 1) a dedicate wood expert can see it is not ebony and 2) if you thin it down much, you can see witness lines of the wood fiber if you look closely, looks like very fine carbon fiber weave. Not highly objectionable to my eye, but it is there. This can be controlled by careful machining of the binding landings and tight installation so minimal sanding/scraping is needed after installation.

[Toby Park]

Thanks,

That fiber product looks like a good back up plan should I have no success with the wood.

The ebony arrived today so i'm part way through bending my first piece. I'm going very slowly but it is starting to bend. I've only got a subtle curve on it at the moment, almost enough for the main lower bout, and I've had one split which I think is fixable. Not looking forward to the tighter corners though as it's not going without a fight.

As for plastic looking the same as wood, hmmm, I'm not convinced. This will be an entirely satin/oil finished guitar and the matte texture of wood will definitely be noticeable I think, with shiny black plastic looking out of place.

I agree, the 'mystery adhesive' of that veneer product put me off a bit but Chuck i'm curious why using it is such a Faux-pas? It is made from 0.5mm strips of real ebony, apparently, and it might be possible to remove the adhesive from the back?

Thanks again
Toby.

[Chuck Tweedy]

It's just the adhesive that is a problem.
Building ebony binding from strips of veneer is a very good technique - but they can't be held together with a rubber/like adhesive.

[Toby Park]

Thanks again,

Well having spent the last day and a half working on this, it's slow but going OK. I've only wasted an inch or two of wood and all the binding is pretty much done.

I started with the larger bends and worked my way towards the trickier pieces, having just bent this, which fit in so tightly it didn't even need any tape whilst gluing.

Oh and yes, it's an electric. I posted the original question in this part of the forum as I though there may be more binders handing around here!

[Chuck Tweedy]

Oh, you are doing great!
That tight bend is really hard to do.