curly cherry?

[peter havriluk]

I'll be bending the sides to my current project - - - 'curly cherry' says the vendor (RC Tonewoods). I'd love to get some comments as to how this species behaves during bending. I realize that grain orientation has a large influence on how the wood behaves in the bender, and this particular set was characterized as 'curly' and there is no grain showing on the surfaces, just a whole bunch of irregularly-spotted areas, as if I was looking at a map with a whole bunch of large islands in the sea.

Any suggestions, observations, or comments will be much appreciated.

Thanks, folks.

[Tim Benware]

I've had no problems bending it with my Fox style bender. I lightly mist it, sandwich it between sheets of brown paper, then between my bending slats with the heating blanket on top (that is my sandwich setup). I bend the lower bout at 220*, the upper bout at 270*, the waist at 300*, then I bring it up to 375* at 375* I switch my power controller (a router variable control) to my predetermined set temperature 0f 220* and switch the power setting to variable. I set my timer to 10 minutes, when it goes off it is very close to my 220* target temp at which time i turn all the power off and let it cool to room temp before I remove the set.

[peter havriluk]

Thanks, Tim.

And a second question: The b/s set I have doesn't show much porosity, might a grain fill with Z-poxy be worth doing? In general, does cherry need grain filling?

Thanks!

[Dave Bagwill]

In general, no. I've built a few cherry guitars and they needed no pore filling at all. YMMV