Side Bending

The next step in Rick's Tenor is to bend the sides, actually you could to several things next but I chose to bend the sides. It's my first time bending Walnut but it is suppose to bend easy and it did.. I also bent the Maple bindings. The process went well with no surprises.

I use a Fox style bender with a heating blanket and controller

After bending the sides are cut to length and placed in the form to help them hold shape until the end blocks and linings are installed.

Wrapping the sides for bending, parchment & foil

Sandwiched in the bender, spring steel - side - blanket - spring steel

Temp going up, max set to 290 which I did not even get to bending

Bend complete

Sides all trimmed and in the mould..

Next step will be routing the mortise in the neck block and gluing the blocks to the sides