RobF -> RE: cooked my sides (Oct. 22 2020 16:56:46)
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Hi Stu. Pictures really would help, or a more detailed description of your setup and what you did, also what type of wood you were bending. If it was cypress, it can stain from the water/steam when the wet wood is heated. Basically, resins mix with the water and burn and then settle back onto the wood when the water evaporates. The stain will be dark brown and can look like a burn, but it’s really a stain. This generally can be sanded out without too much effort. Of course, it can also be a burn, but even if so, it often won’t go too deep and can still be sanded out. That you cooked the bouts instead of the waist makes me think you might have made a sandwich out of the spring steel, blanket, and side and then held it firm at each end with clothespins or small clamps to be able to put it all into the form without stuff moving around too much. If you then turned on the blanket without releasing the ends, the bouts would be cooking away while the waist was being clamped down. The solution to that is to start clamping the waist and, once it is secure, release the end clamps on the sandwich and let the bottom spring steel and blanket portion of the sandwich fall away from the side. Once the waist is 70-80% formed, start bringing the sides into play, slowly, gently, but with some haste, and alternate completing the waist clamping with forming the bouts until the bouts are fully down. Leave the last 5% or so of the waist until last, that way the final waist clamping will pull any portion of the bouts that may have risen off the form back snug onto it. If the sides are soaked and wrapped in foil then try lowering the heat, as well. The temperatures sometimes suggested online can be pretty high. If you’re careful, you should be able to get the whole thing done without exceeding 280-290F. Just be gentle, but also don’t linger. Parchment can also be used instead of foil. I think the idea there is to aid evaporation. Some forms use perforated spring steel, also for that purpose. Then you can get a nice polka-dot pattern cooked into the cypress..which, of course, is muy flamenco.
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