Well I attempted to bend the sides for my tenor uke this weekend.

I soaked the first side for about 30 minutes so it was good and wet. I had built a modified Fox Bender and was using light bulbs controlled with a dimmer switch.

As I was cranking down the waist, I heard a pop. At first I thought I may have cracked the wood, so I wetted things down some more and continued. I then got to thinking that the pop was not the noise I was expecting to hear if the wood cracked. I finished the bend.

After the bend was complete, I turned the bender over to look at the underside. As I had suspected, the metal sheet I had used over the top of the bender had caved in between the waist and the lower bout. At this point I panicked. I didn’t want to let the wood dry out with it not being in the correct shape. So I pulled the side out and tried to clamp it in my form. I had built a form like is shown in the Dennis Gilbert book. I had trouble getting the inner part of the form to seat into the mold. The problem here was that I had not trimmed enough off the inner side of the plug to make up for the additional wood from the side. I cut the plug into 3 sections. I clamped the upper and lower bout sections into the plug with the side blank.

I’m waiting for the wood to dry a bit more before I pull it out of the mold. I’m a bit concerned that when I put the wood into the mold, I went in a bit crooked. I was more concerned with getting the shape than with the overall alignment. I guess I will see how it worked out when I pull it out of the mold. I’m expecting quite a bit of spring back. I guess I’ll need to touch it up with a hot pipe.

I may try to use a pipe for the other side. Although, I may try to fix the bender. I think if I insert a wooden dowel along the edge where the bend occurred, and replace the sheet metal, I will be OK. This dowel would be placed sort of like the heat retaining rods that the LMI benders use. I am thinking that this may add some needed support in that area.

I have to say that the bending process with the bender was quite a bit easier than I thought it would be. If I hadn’t had the problem with the bender, I think I would have two fairly well bent sides right now.

John

Auwe   and aloha all....

here's a tip...I've got a passle of benders from classical guitars down to pineapple cutaways and i use 3/4 birch or maple 5 ply for the matching sides and 24 or 26 guage galvanized and sometimes stainless (perforated sheetmetal) Sheet metal; width is 5 and 7/8th inch wide and is simply nailed to the forms sides with drywall nails (cupped heads)...these benders have worked well with nary a dent so I suppose that the sheetmetal covering should be in the 24 to 26 guage thickness.
Yup like dominater states adding a few cross dowels or 1/4 round shoe moulding will help stiffen any thin sheetmetal covering and keep it from imploding too!

By the way Dominator..thanks to your transcription of Ohta sans song for anna....I have a nice solo song on my uke that i have actually memorized and play along with Ohta san on his trio CD from Japan...mahalo...also like your UGH donated version of Yesterday...hmmm  a high G player huh?     later guys   ukeman

I have worked out the problems with my bender. I cut some 1 inch pieces of plywood and attached them just below the sheet metal on the inside of the bender. I put one on each side of the upper bout and one at the waist on the lower bout.

The second side worked like a charm.

I also worked on refining my mold a bit. It made it much easier to get the freshly bent piece in there and clamped.

I soaked the first piece for about 10 minutes and then put it on the upgraded bender. It pretty much fixed the problems.

The metal I used for the bender was stainless stele roofing flashing. I think it was just a bit thin.

So I’m one step closer to assembly.

John