Ice ice baby.....

DAY 6

I didn't get to spend too much time working on the side bender tonight. We are having a pretty big ice storm around here so I spent a couple hours after work with a chain saw cutting limbs that have broken out of trees. Driving home from work, I was greeted by a fairly large limb from one of my willow trees that broke under the weight of the ice, and landed across the road. Needless to say, my first priority was to get that cut out and dragged off to the side of the road so cars could pass. Hopefully the ice is done and the trees will hang in there for the next few days. Ice storms like this play havoc with the trees, and utility lines. So far [crosses fingers] our power is still up as well as the cable line.

Anyways, once all that was done, I went up to my shop and started working on the side bender. It is a pretty basic setup and I will use 200w bulbs for a heat source. I didn't have time to make the bulb holder but I did get the bending mold finished. You might be wondering why I am building a side bender when I got pre-bent sides from LMI. Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, my next guitar will probably be the same as this one and I will bend the sides for it. Second, all of the perfling I got was not bent and it will need to be bent before installation. Here are some pictures of tonight's progress.

This is what everything looks like around here. That is about 1/2" of ice on everything. Unfortunately it is supposed to stay below freezing for the next couple of days so it will be looking like this for a while.

First I cut the two sides using the LMI OM plans I got with my kit.

Then I drilled 3/4" holes around the edge for the 1/2" EMT braces.

The braces are nothing more the pieces of 1/2" electrical metallic tubing.

I put sheet metal along the edges to bend against.

Here is the completed bender form. All I need is the heating unit, and the pieces of steel to sandwich the wood between.