Four Part Harmony

Not too much news on the guitar front, but here’s an update anyway.
I actually finished making this side bending form a week or so ago.
It made for an interesting project.
Embarrassingly enough, I had to relearn everything I had forgotten about electrical wiring.
I got it all wired up properly though, even put a timer switch on it as an added safety precaution.

3 150W bulbs in this box lined with foil tape.

And here’s the completed bender.
There are clamping cauls at the waist of the guitar and at either end.
The general idea will be to use the lamps to get the temperature inside the box to around 250-300 degrees. The individual sides will then be moistened (with rosewood some people even soak them apparently) and then placed between the two aluminum slats that are laying across the bender in the photo, and slowly bent around the form, clamped and left to cool.

I’m pretty eager to give it a try, but I need to take the sides down from their present thickness (0.100 inch) to the final thickness (0.085 inch). I intend to sharpen some scrapers and try my hand at scraping them down, but may also end up sanding them.