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estebanana -> RE: Bending ziricote' (Aug. 26 2012 0:55:47)
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John,
Whenever read your posts I have to hold my left hand over the screen were that flashing number dynamite is. FWIW it is hard to read your stuff. I fear explosive reprisals if you don't get the information you seek.
Do you have a silicon blanket? I've never bent Zirocote because I've never purchased any, I get seasick looking at it in luthier supply catalog's. I file it under 'one of those pretty woods', so I have never bent a set of Ziricote.
This is unfortunate because I can't give precise details on how to do it. But if you have a silicon blanket and you go slowly at about 300 degrees and thin your wood to about .070 most stubborn woods will bend.
Most of the hard woods that are dark, just saying in general, have this quality where when you heat them they won't bend, won't bend, won't bend and then all of a sudden they get plastic. You have to heat them carefully, evenly and watch and feel like a hawk for the instant when they go plastic. When it goes and you get it at the waist you have it made.
If you don't have a side bender or a silicon blanket get a backer piece of flexible metal or aluminum flashing behind the wood at the waist. Use gloves and hold a full width piece flashing on the outside of the rib as you work it over the bending iron. This support from behind provides enough surface tension on the opposite side of the rib to keep it more safe as you apply pressure. And once more feel for that moment when the wood goes plastic and keep it moving and hot.
If you have a silicon blanket but no bending machine you can carefully heat the rib in the waist area with the blanket and pick it up with gloves and back it with the flashing ( heat the flashing too) to give it a head start at getting hot on the bending iron.
These techniques work with any kind of wood that may have difficult grain structure or potential to break.
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