I'm going to use my bending heat blanket for the first time.

[Kevin in California]

I'd appreciate some input, advice, wisdom.
I am starting over on the guitar for my grandson. That is another story.
I started out with Santos Mahogany for his guitar, was trying to bend a cutaway, broke the side, switched to some cherry.
Okay, so I have one more set of the Santos, so I'm going back to that B & S wood, but I'm not doing a cutaway, just normal OM.

This will be my first time to use my heat blanket and controller. I'm not scared or anything, I've bent a dozen sets on my bender. However, I have never wrapped the wood when bending, I've just sandwiched between two stainless slats. The Cherry I bent last discolored.....enough that when trying to sand it down to nice clean wood I had problems. So I'm thinking I need to start wrapping. The question is should I wrap in aluminum foil or kraft paper, or does it matter. The Santos Mahogany is not oily, but it can scortch, and it can pick up stain from the stainless steel.

So what would you experienced bender guys do? Or does it matter which I use to wrap in? I'm also inclined to bend it dry rather when spritzing the sides before wrapping, just so I don't get water stains, although those usually do sand off easily. Mixed ideas on whether the moisture is necessary I know, I've always spritzed my wood when bending.
The first time I bent this Santos I soaked the sides in hot water for about 10 minutes before bending, and at that time it bent fine.

Thanks for your input.

Kevin

[ken cierp]

The only reason I wrap the sides is to prevent staining of light color woods, main concern is residue on the bender or slats. Again pointing to the real pros, the factories other than that issue no wrapping needed. I use parchment or white Kraft paper, I have experience discoloration when using the dark Kraft paper to the extent the sides were rendered useless.

[Kevin in California]

Yikes, I think I have some white paper. Why would some people wrap in foil do you think?

[ken cierp]

Just a guess -- but I suspect that the use of foil and layers of Kraft paper are used in order to apply extereme heat long term heat and prevent burning the side. I my view those that do this are battling the root problem of using side blanks that are simply too thick .075 is plenty. To their defense I have seen renderring after renderring that have this dimension wrong -- most notible is a popular Gibson drawing that indicates .125" please get real!

[Kim Hillard]

So not trying to hijack your post but I am in a situation where I've mostly completed my own side bender and I've been reading so many different posts about where other builders purchase their heating blankets. I've been to the Omega site and the picture of their blankets seem rather lumpy and am wondering if others have used their products and if the lumpy surfaces really exist or does it even matter?
I am in the market for a 6" x 36" size.

My heat controller is a PID controlled SS Relay with a timer for auto shutoff.

Thanks for any suggestions

[Kevin in California]

I bought my blanket on Ebay, came from China. Took a month, but it is great, and at least half the price. Now I'm all for buying American, but sometimes you just can't resist saving the bucks.

[peter havriluk]

I took a page from Kevin's book and ordered my heat blanket from a Chinese source (Keenovo). Worked very nicely the first time (and only time, so far) that I used it. Like Kevin found, price was half that of domestic sources and it arrived very quickly.