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Side Bending using the Universal or Fox Side Bender

Donn Fierro - 10:24pm Nov 10, 1997
Hi everyone. I've been reading your messages about finishing and bending maple with great interest. I am also about to bend some curly maple for the first time. I have the Charles Fox side bender but when I use it on mahogany the sides get stained almost all the way through. This happens with walnut too. I use distilled water in a spray bottle.I`m worried about ruining some beautiful wood. I`ve never had a staining problem on the bending iron but I`m worried about fracturing the maple. Has anyone had this trouble before?

Dean Harrington - 02:20am Nov 12, 1997
Donn,
I use the same bender and have noticed some staining but it doesn't go all the way through on my wood. I suggest having seperate metal slats for light colored wood. If this is not possible, wash them with acetone and scrub with steel wool until every speck of tar is removed. If you still have a problem, keep the sides a little thicker so they can be sanded or scraped. Maybe the light bulbs are too hot, I use 100 - 150 watt bulbs.

hope this helps.

Tom Bailey - 11:04am Nov 12, 1997
Luthier
Donn,
I have not used that bender, but it sounds to me like the stain is coming from the pigments in the wood itself. Steam will readily cause the stripes in walnut to run together. Perhaps you could try doing it with no water and lower heat along with slower bending (scraps first of course). Be equally careful about too much water on figured maple as it can weaken the end grain areas.

Terry Watkins - 12:33pm Nov 12, 1997
I would like to hear more opinions on the Fox Side bender. Both pro and con. I'm new at instrument building and the heated pipe method, for me is fairly "hit and miss".

I've been planning on building the Fox Side Bender. What I've heard is Fox bender is foolproof and works great every time. But what I'm hearing here is, it also has it's problems.

I'd like to hear more from people experienced with the Fox bender.

Dean Harrington - 09:50pm Nov 12, 1997
Terry,
The bender works great and I encourage you to use it. Just about every tool has it's own peculiar problems but this thing really works. If you're good at bending with a pipe (I'm not) I'm sure that works well too. From what I've heard, it's really hard to bend rosewood 3/32" or thicker on a pipe, with the bendier it's easy and very little water needs to be introduced into the wood. I just lightly spray on some water from just inside where the tail block and the neck block will sit. You don't need to wet the entire piece, it's not needed at the ends and the bender isn't as hot near the outer edges because of the way light bulbs are situated. I know of one maker who uses heating blankets instead of the light bulbs to get more even distribution of heat but I think the lights work just fine. Spring back is negligable if you are using a mold. This is one of the few pieces of equipment I've bought that actually works as good as the catalog claims.

As far as

Donn Fierro - 11:25pm Nov 12, 1997
Dean & Tom, Thanks for the advise on the bender. I think I have three two hundred watt bulbs in mine. I`m probably using too much water as well. I built my bender from looking at the pictures in the LMI catalog. It works great except for the stains, which are my fault,I`m sure. After all,I`ve been staining the bathtub red for years soaking mahogany sides in hot water. Just ask my wife.<g> thanks again.

George Dietz - 06:16pm Nov 13, 1997
An easy way to foil the transfer of color from one wood to another in the side bender is to wrap the sides with aluminum foil-pun intended, so the metal slats never absorb any color.

I have a question- does anyone have strong feelings on alcohol as compared to water as a solvent in the side bender. I'm especially thinking of highly figured maple which we all know should not get too wet.

Dean Harrington - 09:46pm Nov 13, 1997
George,
The foil is a great idea and simple, I wish I'd thought of it. Donn-- I wouldn't soak the wood at all. Just put some water in a spray bottle and give it a light spraying on both sides imediately before putting it in the bender.

Chris Simeone - 12:01pm Nov 14, 1997
For anyone who is interested in building a side bending machine there are some decent plans in the back of Jim Williams "Guitar Making Manual" text. There not extremely detailed but there good enough.

I have not built one yet but I will be soon based on these plans.

Has anyone else seen these plans? If so what do you think? Are there better, more detailed plans available?

Chris

Terry Watkins - 05:44pm Nov 14, 1997
I've got both William's book and the LMI plans for the Fox Side bender.

The LMI plans are better (they should be they costs $12). They are full size. But both plans are somehwat lacking in material specs. LMI's handbook and catalog has several pages detailing the operation and use of the bender.

I haven't yet made one, but it seems fairly simple. My first instrument (which I'm still working on) is a mandolin, with two "points". It's a semi-copy of an old Gibson and D-Angelico, I saw in Gruhn's book. The side bender would probably not have worked on such tight curves.

George Dietz - 08:14pm Nov 14, 1997
As a frugal luthier, I looked for ways to cut down on the cost of a sidebender. First of all the LMI catalog describes their kit using special hardwood plywood as "built for a lifetime"- well, as I am pushing 60 years of age, my lifetime is a bit shorter than some youngster just starting out- so fir plywood met my specs.

The second most expensive item is the LMI screw system. My solution was to braze a nut to a large washer and capture it below the hole in the cross member. A threaded rod with a handle at one end and a little gizmo at the other end allowing the rod to raise and lower the shoe complete that system.

There are a lot of metal dealers from whom you can obtain the stainless steel slats.

If anyone is interested, I can give the address of a good source for the springs. If you, like me , lived in the L.A area you can walk in and buy all the springs surplus for about six bucks.

Any questions?

Phil Orlikowski - 12:30am Nov 15, 1997
The universal side bender is one of the first jigs I built when I got into this whole lutherie thing. I just bought the parts from LMI and made it out of good plywood ,I must say that it's the simplest and most sure way to bend sides. I use 3 150watt bulbs and pre-heat for ten min.,soak the sides in warm water for 15 min. and bend-em with the heat still on for another ten min. then shut it down and take it outside to cool for an hour or so depending on temp. I mean the whole jig goes outside with the sides still clamped in 'till they cool.Never had a problem with scorching or fractures.If I'm going from rosewood to maple there is invariably stains left on the slats from the rosewood but they clean off quickly with a little lacquer thinner and a scoth-brite pad. I still bend my cut-a-ways over a pipe but I want to build the cut-a-way version of the side-bender,just have'nt got'n 'round to it. later

Lance McCollum - 01:42am Nov 16, 1997
Hi guys -- Gary Dusina and I have been following this discussion and decided it was time for one of us to post. I lost the coin toss.

We both use the LMI side benders. I use two 300-watt lightbulbs to heat mine and Gary uses heater blankets. They both work equally well. It all depends on what you get used to using. As far as building them out of baltic birch (ply), no, standard plywood will work. In fact, I spent a morning recently building another one for me and one for my unofficial apprentice. I needed another one because I modified my original bender to handle my rounded cutaway (tip).

The way that LMI, in their catalog, shows the removeable piece used as the press in the cutaway, does not work as well as it should. I have created a solid caul that rolls around the corner of the cutaway and then cranks into the relief. If we could post pictures it would be much easier to describe what I've come up with. After breaking one set of Indian Rosewood with the original design, I have not broken a set since I made my modification. This includes four sets of Brazilian, highly flamed Koa, walnut, and Tasmanian blackwood.

The trick to bending all these woods is knowing how long to soak them. Walnut takes just the time it takes to get wet, same with maple, Brazilian and woods of that type can take up to four hours. You have to be able to gauge the saturation of the section of wood that you're going to try to crank around a tight corner. It almost has to be soggy in that area so the wood actually stretches. After bending (and go SLOW) I cook for 15 minutes and let cool completely in the form. If not completely dry, cook some more, or keep in the form until dry.

To soak, I only use hosewater, never warm -- alcohol scares the crap out of me, as it should you (keep your eyebrows covered). The way to (hopefully) keep you maple from staining, is to wrap it in non-printed paper towels, spritz the towels and bend (with the paper on them) in clean steel. Sometimes you'll end up with little blue or orange stains which are probably from the minerals in your water. Mine tends to be blue. So if this is the case, spritz only with distilled water.

In 56 guitars I've broken one side, and it was a cutaway, which I turned into a really pointy style cutaway that sold amazingly fast -- just what the guy wanted (G). So the moral of the story is, if you screw up a guitar somehow, be creative and turn it into something useful. Because as someone once told me, the sign of a good luthier is not how well he can build something, but how well he can hide his mistakes.

Terry McCafferty - 04:06pm Dec 3, 1997
Mountain Dulcimers and Pick'n Sticks
I recently purchased a Watlow blanket and a back issue of GAL that had an article on side bending with the electric blanket. Could someone help clear-up a few points that I didn't get in the article?

After the wood is soaked, is the blanket pre-heated before appling the wood or is it applied to the wood and then heated?

Would it be better to lay the blanket on a flat surface to get good contact with the whole piece of wood and when hot, form it to the mold and let it cook or do you put the blanket on the mold and work the wood down to it? If the latter, it doesn't seem to me you are heating the wood you are bending as it wouldn't initially be touching the blanket.

Would it be better to lay a blanket on both sides of the wood or just on one?

Do you put sheet metal on top of the wood and then clamp it?

The article indicated to line your form with sheet metal to protect the form. It seems this would couple heat away from the blanket and the wood being bent. It seems like it would be better to put an insulating barrier on the form such as maybe fiberglass cloth that is used for fiberglass work.

Any feedback would be greatly appreciated as I am ready to make a stab at it.

Regards,
Terry

Bruce Taylor - 11:41am Jan 7, 1998
This is in answer to Terry McCafferty's question concerning Watlow heating blankets.

After the wood is soaked, is the blanket pre-heated before appling the wood or is it applied to the wood and then heated?
I heat the blanket up for a couple of minutes, so that the moisture in the wood vaporizes almost immediately on contact with the hot silicone. I can't see any advantage to heating the wood and blanket together.

Would it be better to lay the blanket on a flat surface to get good contact with the whole piece of wood and when hot, form it to the mold and let it cook...
Simply drape the blanket over the mould so that the area at the waist is almost flat. It will sag a bit, but that's o.k. Tuck a piece of scrap wood under the blanket at the waist and lift it up so that it touches the side-wood. When the side is hot, start bending the waist.

By the time the waist is fully clamped down, you'll find that the upper and lower bouts have dried out (they've been in contact with the blanket since you began the operation). You might want to brush a bit of water on the underside of each bout before finishing the bend.

Practise on scrap before bending your sides. The silicone blanket is easier to master than freehand bending on a hot pipe, but it is still possible to spoil your work.

Wayne Kelly - 03:40pm Jan 27, 1998
A few years ago, wanting to build a Fox bender and being on a small budget I used locally available materials. Instead of using the relatively expensive stainless steel slats from LMI I went to my local sheet-metal shop and ordered some custom-sized pieces cut from ordinairy galvanized sheet-metal. I bought about a dozen slats for the price of a single pair of stainless steel LMI ones. In use they work great. There's never been any creasing or deformation at the waist. They have an amazing amount of spring back - they go almost flat when I remove them from the form. Although they tend to collect resin stain when I bend rosewood, I've found that Easy-Off spray oven cleaner and steel wool cleans them right up.

By the way, spray oven cleaner is great stuff for cleaning wood resin from table saw blades, router bits etc.

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