Bending the headstock plates

[Dave Anderson]

Hi Guys and Gals,
Well, I managed to get the back hs. plate bent and glued on after cracking the 1st AND 2nd plates. I never had trouble bending ebony for this before but this guitar just didn't want to have ebony for the headstock overlays I guess, so I switched to a piece of bookmatched brw. sprayed some Supersoft2 and it bent very nicely. I sprayed the ebony with SS2 also but It didn't help much.It was a stubborn and dense piece of wood!I'm using Schallers with ebony buttons so I thought ebony plates would look good.This guitar is Really fightin' me! But , I'm glad it worked out this way.

I like bending this piece with the pipe vertical.I can control it better.

Scraped and sanded

[Kim]

Very nice bit of brw Dave, the job has turned out well worth the perseverance. Just a thought but maybe if you went a little thinner the ebony would have been OK.

Cheers

Kim

[Nick]

Mmmmmmmmmmm Nice. You certainly put some work into your headstocks don't you Dave And a good thing too, I enjoy watching your work.

[Dave Anderson]

Kim, I did go as thin as I thought possible with the ebony at .070 (same as the front overlay). A little thinner
might have worked but wouldn't look right to me. This was just some mean,rock hard ol' ebony that had
no intention of bending. It's strange because I bent ebony for my L-00 at the same thickness
with no problems but all wood is different right. You never know which piece is going to fight you.
Anyway,I'm glad I ended up using brw. for it .I think it will be fine with the ebony tuners.Thanks Kim.

Thanks Nick. Yes, I guess I do put a lot into my headstocks . I enjoy working on necks even when they don't
want to cooperate sometimes!

[Kim]

Anyway,I'm glad I ended up using brw. for it .I think it will be fine with the ebony tuners.

And so you should be Dave it's a great looking headstock and the eb tuners will be the just roos shoes.

Cheers

Kim

[rocket]

nice looking headstock with the volute dave, pardon my ignoance everyone , but what is supersoft 2 and where don you get it?

[Lillian]

Super Soft II is a veneer softener.

http://www.veneersupplies.com/product_i ... cts_id=616

I don't know if the guys ever found a source of something similar there or not. I've shipped a gallon over. Shipping ended up being twice the cost of the softener. But there was enough there to last a good long while.

[J.F. Custom]

Hi all and thanks Lillian - beat me to it

Yeah it's available here too. Judging by what Lillian stated, some members may have been looking for it. Perhaps I wasn't a member at the time for I have not seen the conversation and would have helped out. For future reference, here is the link to buy it in Australia -

http://www.carbatec.com.au/craft-access ... r-softener

or here -

http://www.rivergumtimbers.com.au/index ... &Itemid=26

This stuff is a veneer softener too but I'm not sure whether there are proprietary differences between the two products. I imagine they are very similar with minor differences and ultimately do the same thing anyway.

Speaking to the owner/manufacturer here he assures me his 'chemists' analyzed others available on the market and eventually 'modified' his to be slightly different again. He spent significant time doing the R&D for it. Yet to try it personally though but its worth a crack at.

Hope this helps.

Jeremy.