MIMF

Silly, silly me. Ive started a new flattop and bent one of the sides the wrong way (grain wise). That is, in my homemade foxbender. Anyone else ever done something this silly and how to go about unbending it?

Bend the other side to match? What do you mean "the wrong way grain wise"?

my guess is he means they are slip matched rather than bookmatched

Been there, done that, but a bending pipe makes it much easier! If you have access to a pipe (build one if you don't!), unbend that way to flatten, then use your Fox bender as usual to rebend the right way (check 3 times first!).

If you are using a heat blanket, you can unbend it by heating and clamping between two flat boards. Then rebend it with the bender the right way.

That's a good idea, but you would benefit by using the hot pipe first to flatten it a bit. If the side is real curvy it is very hard to get it started between two flat boards.
If you do the thing with two boards, make sure the heat blanket is on top of the side and in full contact with the wood, or it will not heat the side enough to bend and it'll break as you force it. You need to make sure the side is hot enough before you try and bend it. If the blanket is on the bottom it will not be in contact with the side in places and it is through contact that it heats the side.

I once had to unbend a side. I took a steam iron, the kind you use to iron your shirts with and went to town with it. It took a while and I took my time but I got it nice and flat and put it between other boards to cool and dry. Then I started over. Worked for me.

Hey Murray. Oh yeah, I've done that one. Recovery is not as difficult as one might think. Any of these ideas should work just fine. I used the steam iron approach myself.

Mick

I've had little success with unbending East Indian rosewood, on two occasions. Seems to have become heat-treated. Had better luck with Brazilian.

That is all.

Pat

I've done it on a few occasions, with, let's see – I madrose, maple, birch, cocobolo? No problems that I recall, I used the hot pipe for straightening them out, and put them back in the bender the right way. Most woods seem to become harder to bend if they have been heated at high temperatures and/or for long periods of time, some woods don't like to bend at all, I guess especially not back and forth.