side bending

[Matt Atkinson]

Bent two wenge sides on my bender with a heat blanket. They bent well but with quite a lot of springback. The sides fit well in my outside form with spreaders. The tail and headblock are glued in. When I release the form they still have quite a lot of springback. Question: Will the kerfing help hold the sides from springback? Should I use a bending pipe to try and take the curse out? I'm afraid of working them too much and making more trouble. Thoughts?

[Bryan Bear]

Kerfed linings won't do a whole lot to stop the spring back unless they are reversed kerf linings. Solid, laminated linings would help as well.

Touching up on the hot pipe would have been much easier to do before the rim was glued together. Bending one side will be restricted by the shape of the other to some extent, that would confuse me as I tried to get the correct shapes and get them symmetrical.

Once the top and back are glued on that will help keep everything in line but I'm not sure how much spring back is too much for this approach.

In the future, try heat cycling the sides in the bender after they are bent. This can help reduce spring back.

[Marshall Dixon]

You'll want a hot pipe to bend these now. Not a big deal, but getting even results could be trickey.

The typical kerfed linings won't hold the shape. The reverse kerf might be better, but depending upon the amount of resistance they need to provide. I would use laminated linings. What I do is build the linings up on the sides without gluing the initial lining to the side. (Protect the side below the lining with masking tape.) Then remove the completed lining an run the top over a 1/4 round bit on the router to pretty them up. This beats doing it by hand when glued in place. Then glue the unit in place. A bit labor intensive, but that will hold the shape.

[Darren King]

I was completely astonished at how much more rigid my Maccaferri body was with laminated linings than my previous guitars had been with kerfed linings. If you are looking for stiffness then laminated is the way to go.

[Matt Atkinson]

Hey thanks all. Using reverse kerf. Much better.