Benders used at The Whetstone School of Lutherie

[ken cierp]

Scott sent me this photo of the benders used in the classrooms -- This design is commonly refereed to as the Everett style. I've also attached a link showing some construction details for this type of bender.
http://gicl.cs.drexel.edu/people/sevy/l ... nding.html

[John Parchem]

I used a bender close to this one to bend a koa set of sides on my third guitar. I have to say that it was as easy to use as my current fox style bender. When I used it the waist was bend first but leaving a little to go. Then the bouts were bent mostly using my gloved hands to apply pressure against the mold. After both bouts were bent and clamped against the side the waist was finished pulling any slack on the bouts tight.

I really enjoyed the steel string construction in the link you posted. Jon Savy makes great use of jigs especially for glueing. I really enjoyed his rosette making description.

[TonyinNYC]

I like the little jig he uses for cutting the sides to length, but I wonder if it will have blow out of the wood since it is end grain, thin and unsupported.
I used to mark the sides and then remove them from the mold to cut them. Now I just cut straight through both of them while they are clamped in the mold after marking a straight line on them. Since the neck joint is covered by the neck and the tail will be cut for an end wedge, there is no need to get a perfect, flawless joint at either end unless you will not be adding a tail wedge.

[John Parchem]

I like the little jig he uses for cutting the sides to length, but I wonder if it will have blow out of the wood since it is end grain, thin and unsupported.
I used to mark the sides and then remove them from the mold to cut them. Now I just cut straight through both of them while they are clamped in the mold after marking a straight line on them. Since the neck joint is covered by the neck and the tail will be cut for an end wedge, there is no need to get a perfect, flawless joint at either end unless you will not be adding a tail wedge.

I agree I would scared to take a plane to the endgrain of Eastern Indian Rosewood sides. I do cut them really close to length on a band saw and then sand them so that the sides snap into place in the molds with a little bit of tension. I am not looking for a perfect visable joint rather I am using the joint to hold the sides in the proper place in the mold while I clamp the end blocks.

I can see your way; if you leave every thing clamped then after cutting you can proceed to gluing on the endblocks with every thing held in place.

[TonyinNYC]

I just do it the way I do out of laziness, not because I thought it through! Lol

[Jay McClellan]

I found this thread while looking at options for simple benders, and the link Ken originally posted is dead but appears to be here now:

http://jsevy.com/luthierie/guitarmaking ... nding.html