In the market for a bending Iron.

[needsmorecowbel]

Is there anyone on the forum who has an Ibex or LMI "professional" bending Iron (I saw in a post that Jeremy has one for touch ups as does Jeff)? The feedback section of Stew-Mac paints a few pretty grim picture of the Ibex Irons: Long heat up times, poor machining of components etc...anyone have any suggestions as to which Irons are the go. This will be used in conjunction with a blanket for touch ups

Stu

[ozwood]

Hi Stu,

I have made and owned a few incarnations of bending irons, I do have an Ibex I got a great deal on , Knowing the problems I took the chance, what I and a few mates that have them have done is have the cylinder the cartridge heater fits into reamed out and fitted with a S/Steel sleeve that is a tight fit for the element, combined with a little silicone heatsink compound from somewhere like jaycar electronics , 12 months later still using the same cartridge element, I also replaced the "washer" at the base with some villaboard rather than the soft shit originally fitted . I got my replacement cartridges elements from ebay for about $5 each , I have also found another supplier of irons and some other good stuff in China and at the price they are selling them for would be worth a chance., but keep it on the low down , we don't want everyone getting $36 thickness callipers , 50 cent BWB purfs and kerfing at a price that will make you want to slap yourself for making it by hand.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Electric-iron-g ... 1c28317331

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Cartridge-Heate ... 3a76cc999e

http://www.ebay.com/itm/9-5-x-50mm-Elec ... 337886d0ce

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=2792


anyway hope that helps,

[Nick]

I've been using the Stewmac bender since I bent my first set of sides 7 years ago. I have used it for every side set I've bent since (heat blanket & bending jig is on the horizon but I have to get around to screwing the bloody thing together! )
I read through the reviews on the Stewmac site & they are a mixed bunch & they are right in some areas! They do take 20 minutes to warm up & although it has a temperature setting dial on it, I found that I leave it pretty much on 6 all the time, Ebony I've had to go to 'high'. Some of the reviews mention about poor heating & control. The temperature control is a simple bi-metal thermostat style so is never going to be as accurate as an electronic PID controller, if you wanted better control you could always install a simmerstat which has a sensor probe which controls it and is a more accurate control, having said that I've never had any problems with mine, I've 'grown up' with it's little foibles. As for the one that said it lost too much heat when they put wet sides against it, it's going to do that, simple physics really but then I've found you don't need the sides soaking wet anyway & if anything I've gone to bending practically dry, just a light spritz.
Just my experiences with one anyway.

[nnickusa]

I bought one of those chinese bending irons when my wife gave me the timber for my first one. It's done four lots of sides and bindings, and seems to work fine. I think it was around $80 delivered. Seemed like a reasonable chance given that all the one's I could find in Oz were $200+....

I plan to keep using mine, as it's given me no trouble. It does take around 20 minutes to get hot, but it's a pretty big mass to heat up, I guess. No thermostat or temperature controller. I just let it heat until a spritz of water "dances" on the pipe, and then I go for it....

Also bought a dial thicknes caliper for less than $100 delivered, and thatt seems to work OK too.....

[charangohabsburg]

[...] but it's a pretty big mass to heat up, I guess. [...]

This reminds me of a Spaniard who reported about his shop made bending "iron". He had milled it from a solid junk of aluminium but had no problem to heat it as he put three (3) 250 Watt heating elements in. But then he complained that his own creation took hours (!) to cool down until he could take it to his car to show it to a friend!

P.S.
My bending iron that I bought from Stewmac takes about 8 minutes to heat up to working temperature, I then can leave it on setting 4 for most woods. I can hear the click of the bimetal thermostat at about every 30 seconds when it turns the heat on, and 10 seconds later turning it off. I think the hysteresis (and thus usefulness) of these super cheap bimetal thermostats is just lottery, but with a better than 50% winning chance.

[Nick]

I think the hysteresis (and thus usefulness) of these super cheap bimetal thermostats is just lottery, but with a better than 50% winning chance.

Think that seems to be the weakest link in the chain with these units as most of the critiques in the Stewmac review system would be associated with the heat & it's control.
To add further on my thoughts before, I do love the shape of these irons, it has pretty much a radius to suit any bend & with the addition of a smaller diameter piece screwed to the top (I made my own), even tight radius's on bindings (such as on headstocks & F5 Mando's) are possible.

[Kamusur]

Haven't tested the waters with a sale yet Paul but the preliminary says that Luthierwoods don't ship to downunder.

Steve

[Clancy]

Like Nick, I've had my Stewmac one for over 7 years.
Never had a problem.
Leave it on 5.
About 10-15min to heat up depending on how cold Canberra is that day.
2 thumbs up.

Now I've said that it'll break over the weekend........

[ozwood]

Hi Steve,

I've got 20 sticks of brace wood , 200 lenghts of BWB , a thickness gauge , 50 marriage strips , 100 lenghts of kerfing and a 50 strips of Rosewood binding that suggest they do , the freight was very reasonable and it arrived within 10 days. I'm not telling you to by from them , and I'm not making any Guarentee's you will be happy with the product , but for my money the bracewood was dead on the quater , some peices head some run-out , but you sort of expect that with sawn bracewood , the thickness guage was a good as the one my mate got from SM . so I'm happy.

Cheers,

Paul.

[Allen]

Haven't tested the waters with a sale yet Paul but the preliminary says that Luthierwoods don't ship to downunder.

Steve

I get a lot of stuff from them. No worries whatsoever dealing with them.

[Kamusur]

Yes definitely worth a look see at those prices and thanks for the heads up gentlemen.

Steve

[kiwigeo]

I got my LMI bending iron about 10 years ago and its still going fine.

[needsmorecowbel]

Did you make any adjustments to it Martin?

[kiwigeo]

Did you make any adjustments to it Martin?

Apart from dropping it on the concrete floor of my shop a few times....no adjustments made.

[gazehound]

Guys,
Those heating cartridges look like a good deal. Looked for some in NZ and from what I've seen
they are at least double the price here.
Seems like the Stewmac and LMI benders are solid billet with a tight fitting bore for the cartridge
to fit into.
Can anyone advise me if the cartridiges would work OK in a pipe, maybe with foil packed around to
distribute the heat more evenly. I've made a iron from a section of aluminium teardrop shaped mast.
It's heated by a incandesant bulb, but I've gone through 3 while practicing lute rib bending so I guess
it's just too hot in there for a bulb.
Any ideas or will they really only work well with billet and bore?
m

[Nick]

Guys,
Those heating cartridges look like a good deal. Looked for some in NZ and from what I've seen
they are at least double the price here.
Seems like the Stewmac and LMI benders are solid billet with a tight fitting bore for the cartridge
to fit into.
Can anyone advise me if the cartridiges would work OK in a pipe, maybe with foil packed around to
distribute the heat more evenly. I've made a iron from a section of aluminium teardrop shaped mast.
It's heated by a incandesant bulb, but I've gone through 3 while practicing lute rib bending so I guess
it's just too hot in there for a bulb.
Any ideas or will they really only work well with billet and bore?
m

The style of bender both LMI & StewMac sell are hollow with a support web to the centre, it's in the central 'core' that the cartridge fits into. The beauty with Ally is it's even heating characteristics so even radiating heat down webs will spread the heat evenly around the outer shape. I'm guessing a cartridge in a pipe would have to be extremely well fitting, steel doesn't heat as evenly as Ally so if the cartridge was slightly closer to one side you'd have a gradient difference. Best bet would be to alter your ally mast to fit a cartridge in, any machine shop (if you aren't mechanically able) could make a support web to fit in the mast's section I would think.
If you are in NZ then you could send me a tracing of the inside of your section, the size of cartridge & the iron height & I could probably knock something up for you.

[MBP]

Its so easy and cheap to make your own.

Some copper pipe and a high powered light globe. You can shape it how you like and make a few different size ones much cheaper than the lmi one.

[Trevor Gore]

I've been using a piece of aluminium yacht mast with a 150mm long, 500w tungsten halogen linear lamp in it, the type used in work site flood lights. Temperature control is via a domestic dimmer switch. The mast section is sealed both ends. The same globe has been going strong for ~10 years now. I got the end fittings for the lamp from a flood light that I dropped and smashed, but they are cheap enough at Bunnies to just buy one and butcher it, if you can't find a cheaper way to get the fittings.

[charangohabsburg]

Maybe, getting a piece of yacht mast is relatively easy in certain luthieriewise privileged regions of the world. But where I live I would have to buy a yacht and butcher it.
This, and because I didn't even find a decently sized piece of a circular section tube is how I ended up buying the Stewmac iron.

[kiwigeo]

Maybe, getting a piece of yacht mast is relatively easy in certain luthieriewise privileged regions of the world. But where I live I would have to buy a yacht and butcher it.

Shouldn't be an issue. I mean its true Switzerland is a land locked nation but that doesn't stop it having a navy and it didn't stop it winning the America's Cup in 2003.

[charangohabsburg]

[...] and it didn't stop it winning the America's Cup in 2003.

...and 2007. As the Alinghi will not participate in 2013 there surely will be some leftovers, but unfortunately its mast was made of carbon fibre. Someone here who wants to build the world's biggest guitar around this gorgeous neck reinforcement?

[MBP]

Copper conducts heat far better than Aluminium so just get some copper from your pluming supply shop.

[Clancy]

I'm also led to believe that Switzerland is also one of only 2 countries in the world that produce ship engines (the other being japan-unless the chinese can be counted in now as well)

Still no mast material but, as Martin said, not a bad effort for a land-locked country.