How to Laminate Guitar Sides - Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag
In this episode, luthier Robbie O’Brien is joined by Canadian luthier Behrad Ng as they engage in a conversation about various methods for laminating guitar sides, sharing their expertise and insights on the process.
Video Transcription
[on-screen text reads: Luthier Tips du Jour Mailbag]
Mailbag question: How do I bend highly figured wood without breaking it?
Robert O'Brien: Today's Tips du Jour Mailbag question comes to us from Australia. "Robert, I have a highly figured piece of wood that I want to use for my guitar sides. How do I bend it without breaking it? Gladys in New South Wales, Australia."
Gladys, that is a good question. If your pucker factor is so far off the charts, you probably recognize that, that you need to do something because just regular bending and that high dollar set of wood, yeah, it could be a problem. Most people in this case would laminate the sides and that opens up a couple of questions.
Why laminate sides?
First question is why, and one of them you've already answered the question is to lower the pucker factor. That way you can bend your sides without breaking and it also perhaps would offer a little bit of cracked resistance. Totally, we won't even go there. I'll let you draw your own conclusions on that.
Laminating sides using clamps and forms
Now, how you do it, you can use a traditional method of clamps and male/female type forms. You can use a vacuum pump and a bag but there, you're getting into a little bit of high dollar gear. I have a friend in Toronto, Bahrad, who makes guitars and he just happens to be here in my shop today. I'll call him on the camera here and I'll let him explain how he solved this issue.
Gladys, here I am in my shop with Bahrad from Canada, and he has solved this issue. I'll let him discuss and talk to you about how he did this.
Laminating sides using a vacuum bag
Bahrad Ng: Gladys, I had a similar issue because I wanted to bend an expensive set of Madagascar Rosewood, but I wasn't confident in my abilities to bend it properly, so I did the female and male mold. With lots of clamps but then that ended up giving me a lot of issues because the thing, it was so heavy I couldn't lift it and I needed a lot of clamps. In Toronto, I was at the time studying at OCAD University, and a fellow by the name of Ted Hunter had designed a set of vacuum bags for skateboards.
These vacuum bags actually use an inexpensive hand pump, and it can hold the vacuum for as long as this seal is made properly. Through working with Ted, we came up with this hand pump vacuum system. Essentially, you put your sides, however many layers you're doing, you put it inside this bag, and then you connect the tube through here and then this stationary pump sits on the table and you can actually pump the air out of it.
The benefit of a vacuum bag is that regardless of how thin or thick your sides are, you can press them together really firmly and then either just do that or take that one step further and clamp it over a form with just two or three clamps. That way you don't need 15, 20 clamps going all the way across. I've been using this bag for the last few guitars and I haven't had any issues. Perhaps that's one way of dealing with the problem.
Robert: There you go. Gladys in New South Wales, Australia, thank you very much for your question, and I hope this helps you lower your pucker factor. Happy building.
[on-screen text reads: More Luthier Tips and online courses available at www.obrienguitars.com. Private and small group guitar building and finishing instruction available.]
