A bloody good time.......

DAY 44

This was a busy day in the shop today. I was able to get 4 coats of lacquer on the OM. I decided that I am finished with lacquering it as it now has a total of 14 coats and I didn't sand through while level sanding over the weekend. Once it is dry, I will hang it up in the warm closet for at least 2 weeks to cure.

In between coats I got started working on the OOO by bending the sides, bending the bindings, and joining the top and back. First up was to soak the rosewood sides in the bath tub for about a half hour while I got the bender set up and heated. I bent the sides one at a time and it went pretty easy. This was my first attempt at side bending and it was really interesting to feel the wood 'give' once it hit a certain temperature. Once the pieces were bent, I clamped them inside the side mold to help them hold their shape. While the wood was on the bender cooking, I worked on joining the top and back plates to get them ready for glue-up. I decided to use the shooting board method since I don't have a joiner, and I am not good with a plane. I clamped a piece of MDF on my tablesaw, clamped the wood to the MDF, and slid my 2' level with sandpaper attached to the edge along the wood until I had an even amount of sawdust coming off all along the wood. It really worked nicely and I was able to get a "light tight" joint on both the top and back quickly. I didn't glue them up yet because I was juggling the spraying of the OM, bending the sides, and sanding the plates all at the same time!

Once the sides were all bent and in the mold, I turned my attention to the bloodwood binding. This is where things came to a screeching halt. I had 8 pieces of wood, for for the body binding, 2 for the fingerboard binding, and 2 spares (just because I still mess up that darned kit wizard!) I started by soaking the wood thoroughly, then I taped 4 pieces together so I could bend them all at once. I started with the bender at 325 degrees and got it all put in place. I started to slowly clamp down the waist and before I got half way down, SNAP! SNAP! Darn, two pieces broken. I took them all out, put two new pieces in and started again. I got the waist in, the lower bout down, and the upper bout about halfway down and then SNAP!. I was able to get it all down and let it cook. Once it cooked and then cooled down I opened it up to see how bad the damage was. I was happy to see only one broken piece, two perfect pieces, and then one piece with a crack but it was still together. I hit that piece with a couple of drops of CA to hold it and then put all three pieces in the side mold. I clamped them inside the sides to keep the shape. I had two pieces left. I decided to go one piece at a time. The first one made it all the way to the waist clamp being tight, the lower bout tight, and the upper bout almost tight. I had about an inch to go when SNAP! Bummer! One piece left to go. This time I went even slower (almost 45 minutes to clamp it down) and used a heat gun on the outside of the wood hoping that heat on both sides would help. I also got the heater just under 400 degrees. Again, just about finished and SNAP! So here I am, 2 good bent pieces, one good but repaired piece, and 5 broken pieces in various levels of bend.

I have put out an SOS call in the forums hoping that someone has any suggestions before I single handedly deplete the bloodwood supply in North America! All in all though, it was a good session in the shop.

The start of the side bend. In the mold warming up.

Waist clamp tight.

Upper and lower bout just in the clamps.

All clamped down and cooking

Both side pieces clamped in the side mold to help them hold their shape.

This is my high tech jointing system. Hey, it works.....

4 pieces of bloodwood ready for the bender.

The 'bloody' aftermath. It ain't a pretty sight!

At least 3 of them worked. Note the CA on the top piece. I will try and make a replacement but I will use this one if I don't have any success bending 2 more pieces.