bindings for soprano

[xray]

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"Originally Posted on: Sun Aug 22, 2010 5:43 pm

just having some major problems. How does everyone bend bindings for a soprano uke? any methods or tricks to it? I have spent most of the day fiddling and it is the hardest thing i HAVE EVER DONE. Would it be easier to just go left firld and bind with plastic?

[jeffhigh]

Dunno, still working on my first batch of 5 soprano's. But I reckon you want to be down around 1.2mm thickness for appearance as well as ease of bending.

[xray]

i have bought the binding set of cutters and bearings from stu mac and i bent the binding oversize the first go and cut them back to repectable thickness with the bearing cutter. This was alright but the snappage was no ggod. Too thick. Trouble is i dont have a sander to take the bindings down and a plane will tear out due to the curl and figure in the bindings.

[jeffhigh]

Well without a sander you could scrape to thickness or send them to someone to sand.(i'd do them for you gratis, just cover postage)

[DarwinStrings]

G'day he who used to be Ray. I take it you mean you don't have a drum sander. Maybe you could try clamping a belt sander on edge to a bench then clamping a fence near the front end of the sanders belt and feeding/dragging the bindings between the fence and the sander (careful of your fingers though ) it may or may not work for you, have a bash on a bit of scrap first, good luck.

Jim

Life is good when you are amongst the wood.

[Allen]

They gotta be thin Andy for them to bend. On Soprano's I go for the .060" to never more than .080"

You'll love a drum sander when you get around to owning one. You'll wonder how you got by without one.

[vandenboom]

A variation on Jim's suggestion, but essentially the same thing is to use a drill press sanding attachment if you have one, set up a fence and pull it through. frank

[rocket]

Ray, are you using a bending iron to get'm to shape or even just a bit of sream? Stu mac's bindings are about 1.5 mm i think, should bend ok with a bit of heat. Cheers Rod.

[TimS]

I had a go with material from the same batch that I sent Andrew and had success. I did however use a thermal blanket over a former and had 135 celcius as my target. I also use a backing steel strap when I bent the Pacific Blackwood. Tas Blackwood bent okay but could have been done with the steel strap as well. I think there would have been a failure if I had made a tighter radius

regards

Tim

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[Lillian]

Andy, you can whip up a thicknesser that doesn't need to be plugged in.

This is Lie Nielsen's Veneer Thicknessing Gauge. Straight up simple.

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This is someone's take on it.

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This is another version. If I remember correctly, it came about after Chris dropped a block plane and broke the toe.

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[vandenboom]

TimS wrote:
I had a go with material from the same batch that I sent Andrew and had success. I did however use a thermal blanket over a former and had 135 celcius as my target. I also use a backing steel strap when I bent the Pacific Blackwood. Tas Blackwood bent okay but could have been done with the steel strap as well. I think there would have been a failure if I had made a tighter radius

Thanks for showing those photos Tim. It had never occurred to me to use the thermal blanket in that way. I have only used on the side mould. Presumably you have a pipe or something under that blanket to pull things over. You probably have it hooked up to a thermostat as well. I don't have one of them yet so it so it would be a bit more difficult to regulate the temp.
Frank

[Craig]

G'day Frank , Just keep in mind that the blanket will need an appropriate heat sink the size of the blanket to avoid the blanket developing hot spots ,,,or worse

[xray]

Thanks everyone especially tim and lillian, both of the ideas are really good. I think fundamentally i need to bite the bullet and buy two things.
1. Drum sander
2. Electric silicone heat blanket.
3. Bobs bloody blackwood
4. Hitachi resaw
Laughing

Im all for doing things with hand tools but geeze you can waste some time in between getting things right. I really dont want to settle for anything less than spot on with this little guy because i probably wont remake one in a hurry. I will go for an Om with nice curvy lines without extreme radius curves.

Ive come up with a very different idea for the end of the fretboard that also covers the soundhole as well. Ill keep everyone posted when that part gets off the ground. Overall im pretty happy with the result. The bindings are crackers (not literally) from Tim and are a treat to bend but my equipment (or lack of) is letting me down.

[TimS]

Good point Craig. I thought I would be able to avoid hot spots with the controller unit which monitors the temperature through a thermocouple in the blanket.

regards

Tim

[xray]

Okay here is where im up to:

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So as you can see after 3 attempts no f?@#ing bindings. ARRRRRGGGH!
So im goin plastic. Problem solved. Im sick of buying equipment worth hundreds of dollars to fix a small building issue such as this one. Anyway. I did say that i was going to share a cool fretboard idea and here it is. What do you guys think? It is a fine thorny vine that crosses over the soundhole in places and it is intended to cover up the rosette join. It will look cool. guess the timbers used if you can.

img~

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