side bending heating pads

[peter havriluk]

I visited a low-volume bespoke guitar maker on Friday and got escorted around to see manufacturing in progress. One of our conversations involved bending the sides. This shop uses two heating pads, one on either side of the piece of wood being bent. Are there any advantages to this technique? One comment from our guide was that the binding channels aren't cut until the sides are sanded dead flat, and I inferred that sandwiching the wood between two heating pads helped avoid cupping, heating each side of the wood side equally. We didn't discuss that topic. Comments?

[ken cierp]

low-volume bespoke guitar maker

Who is it -- why is this a secret????


Cupping has a lot to do with too much water being used and flat sawn material. Also our bending strategy like the factories have the side material pinched flat between two piece of metal. Heat blankets are soft rubber which allows the material to move (its not compressed) so from that stand points two blankets would allow even more movement.

[peter havriluk]

Nope. No secret that I know about. Bourgeois Guitars, very friendly, very willing to share.