Acoustic Guitar Construction

Going to bend some over a pipe this week.

Any hints as to temperature to use?
Could I soak them overnight?

I have not bend cocobolo by hand. I had no problem bending it with my fox bending machine.

Rightly or wrongly I have been using less and less water when I am bending by hand. I generally just spirtz the wood to help start the heat transfer. I found if the wood is too wet it never gets hot enough on the pipe because it is boiling water, stays around 220 degrees. I hand bent figured koa bindings on my last cutaway guitar dry. My pipe is as hot as it goes. Dry I felt the wood get plastic very fast and was able to bend the very tight bends in the cutaway.

Good luck and hope you get more relevant advise than mine.

Sounds good, John, thanks.

I believe its important to use a backing slat to compress the material against the pipe. I machine all my bindings to less than .075"

Good info, thanks.

Dave. when I was bending on my pipe, I bent a set of cocobolo sides. I had no issues, using a wet rag laying over the pipe to generate the steam. I just kept it wet with a spray bottle.
Bindings may be different.

Don't leave the wood too thick, otherwise it is hard bending, Dave.
herman