Side Bending Jig, Need your opinions

[Cam]

I want to give a classical or two and a few ukuleles a go, although I don't want to spend to much money on jigs etc.
So I was wondering if something like this would work but with a temp controlled soldering iron without the tip:


How much heat is needed? I know that my soldering iron can go up to 450 degree celcius and I'm pretty sure that would be enough, but I wanna just check with you guys

[Allen]

Looks like it will do the trick. I really don't know what the temperature of my electric hot pipe gets, but for my blanket and mold, I start to bend at 100 C and finish at about 150 C. If I'm not done the bend by the time I reach 150 C, I'll turn the blanket off, then on again when the temperature drops to about 140 C.

Try some sample pieces of scrap before you commit to the good stuff. It'll give you a feel of what is going to be happening, and will let you judge the temperature.

[Cam]

Thanks Allen.

There's no way I would go straight into the good stuff. I will defiantly have to try it out on some cheaper woods.

[Arnt]

It should work just fine. The way I judge the temperature on my home made bending iron is to spray some water on the pipe; if the water just sizzles it is too cold, if it evaporates instantly it is too hot, so you need to be somewhere in between. The temperature can easily be adjusted by regulating the setting on the torch. The thicker the walls of your pipe the better as this will slow down temperature changes. I second the advise to get some inexpensive pieces of wood to practice with and to get a feel for the process before you start bending your instrument wood. Once mastered, the process is quite enjoyable. Even if you get a bending machine later on it is very conveninent to use the pipe for touchups, bending prototypes and fixing bending mistakes (like when you bent one side the wrong way ), and whatnot...

<edit> About the soldering iron: It might work, but I bet the torch will work better. I have now upgraded mine with an inexpensive electric "charcoal starter" heating element, which has a LOT more hot surface than any soldering iron I've seen, but it's just big enough.

[vandenboom]

Another thing you could consider if you are going to use your soldering iron in place of the gas torch is to fill the pipe with sand, you can shove some steel wool in the open end to stop the sand from leaking out when you lay it horizontally. The sand helps to retain an even temp.

I use a heater element in a 2" copper pipe and fill the pipe with sand in this way. I also have the pipe oriented vertically rather than horizontally.
Frank

[WaddyT]

A soldering iron will work, but they are very slow to heat, and difficult to control, unless you have a control unit. They don't like the router speed controls very much. I was using a soldering iron on my bending iron, but switched to a Charcoal starter, like Arnt. It is awesome. Very quick to heat, and plugged into a router speed control, easy to control. The only thing I see that might be a problem with your iron, might be the size of the pipe. You are going to have a difficult time keeping bends even on such a small pipe. However, I know folks who have used a curling iron and made it work, so have at it.