First Day in Shop for Six Months - Disaster Struck

[kiwigeo]

Kim, do you have the wood sandwiched between two slats? In your original post I think you had the wood then the blanket and then a slat. Looks to me like a bit of support on the outside of those bouts might help you.

My stack up is as follows:

stainless steel slat - wood wrapped in foil (spritzed with water), stainless steel slat - blanket - spring steel slat.

I have the blanket on while Im bending and turn it off as soon as everything is clamped down. I wait about 4-5 hours and then give it another 3 minute burst before leaving overnight still clamped up in the bender.

[Kim Strode]

Thanks Martin,

I do have stainless steel sheets top and bottom, but blanket directly in contact with wrapped side. I haven't had blanket on for that long as I'm concerned about temperature, after burning first side.

It takes 2.45 minutes for blanket to reach 158º C, then I turn it off and begin bending. I start by winding down centre caul, then bend over large bout.

I then turned on blanket for 1 minute and started bending small bout nearest the neck. I achieve this by clamping shaped caul downwards over last curve where body meets neck. This is the bend that is hardest to achieve.

[Allen]

It looks like there is a fair bit of figure and runout in that side Kim. This is going to make it a bit tricky to bend, but you know, thinning the side down to the around 2.3 mm is going to make a huge difference in how easily they bend compared to 2.7 mm.

This side doesn't looked scorched at all either, which means that you've got the moisture trapped in the al-foil packet while you've got the heat on and are bending. A really big improvement on that first go. :serg