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I am about to bend the ebony bindings for my first, and it turns out to be more difficult than I expected. The bindings come from LMI, and the sides are Martin factory seconds, pre-bent with a Venetian cutaway. I did a little trial bending today. I soaked a binding piece really well and bent it over a pipe. I barely made the sharpest turn at the upper bout, and now I wonder how in the name of Lloyd Loar I'm going to make the cutaway? I broke my only spare piece several times trying, and I was never even close. How much heat should I use? Can I bend the bindings as they come from LMI, or do I need to make them thinner? Will it be easier with a heating blanket? Thanks

absolutely. i cant comment on bending on a pipe, as ive never done it, but using a bender will make things much easier in my humble opinion. ive bent a handful of ebony bindings in a fox style bender and i dont recall breaking any. its a dense wood that can be quite difficult to work. plenty of heat and little water in a bender worked just great for me. if you have a bender then go that route for sure. if not, youll have to take the advice of others here. good luck.

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sweat the small stuff.

Timely post, as I am about to try the ebony bindings for the first time myself...
Pretty good thread here:

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=19229&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a&hilit=ebony+bindings

Interesting tip about using fabric softener....

I had considered using the heat pipe but will wait for my new heat blanket to arrive and use the fox bender I made...

I bend a ton of Ebony binding. I do it all by hand, because I find machine bent binding to be inaccurate. It always needs to be touched up, and by that point it's brittle from the heat of the original bend. Also, bending by hand allows me to bend in both directions, to help compensate for the body taper and radius on the top and back.

I thin the strips to .082", and soak them very well. I set my bender almost to full (high heat is very important here), and slowly start to bend. With Ebony binding especially, it's REALLY important to support both sides of the bend with your fingers. My fingers pretty much remain on top of the bender for the entire process (not touching the bender, of course, but always touching the area of the binding that is being bent). If you aren't burning your fingers, you're going to break the Ebony!!! I'm really serious about that.

One thing to keep in mind about Ebony is that contrary to popular belief, it is the least stable wood known to man (durability and stability are two very different things). Often, when you bend Ebony, it warps, cups, and does whatever it wants to. There really is nothing you can do about this, so just go with it. Ebony binding always leaves gaps that cannot be pressed in, but they're easily repairable with black superglue.

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If you don't have to reach over your head to turn the knobs, your amp is too small.

I bend a lot and use the machine without much issue. The important thing is heat and be sure you are cool before pulling. Like anything ,your end result will only be as good as your process. Ebony likes heat and at least you don't have to worry about scorching it. Try 350 to 375 degrees . I think you will be ok. Don't soak it but be sure you keep it damp.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I've only bent one set but had good luck using SuperSoft II and a fox type bender. Based on what some of the more experienced folks said maybe I didn't need the SuperSoft.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

I always buy two more pieces of ebony than I need because it can and will break when you are not expecting and keep on breaking and if it just continues to break then you have to use another piece and then just hope and pray the next does not. I never soak it but I do keep it wet, both sides with a spray bottle of water. I use a heated bending pipe, keep the heat fairly high as some one else mentioned, move slow and it will bend the way you want. Too much rebending to correct a bad bend will break it fast. I have bent perfect U's and circules. If after you glue one piece of the binding on and the glue is dry and you see tiny creveses between the binding and the guitar body mix a small amount of ebony dust with white guitar building glue to fill the void, it works great. Ebony is the only color that it does work so well with. I've tried patching so many different colors of wood with poor results and no one had any answers, everyone just said, good luck.
This will help.

Sondre;
You've received some great advice here.
Thickness is very important and Larrys is a very good one.
You may want to go down to .075 if you want.
I just sprits mine with water and bend them by hand.
they bend with gentle pressure and high heat!
Soaking can cause them to twist as they dry !
You can use a wet piece of veneer or a metal (thin) sheet on the outside radius.
This will help allot !
My Fox bender bends them great also ;especially if their around 2mm (.080)or less.

Mike

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Mike Collins

I bent Ebony for my Cocobolo 000 in the Fox style bender with heat blanket and put an extra in the bundle, but it was not needed. I just used the same heat and everything as the Cocobolo and it went well. I have had more trouble with curly maple binding.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

wow. that surprises me about the curly maple there, but I will keep it in my mental notes.

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"Preoccupation with an effect gives it power and enhances the error"
from "Your Owner's Manual" by Burt Hotchkiss.

Thanks so much for the great advice, everyone! I will try again tomorrow

Sondre

Sondre,

If this is your first build, you might think about using black plastic. It's difficult to tell the difference under finish. You can always practice bending ebony with scraps and perfect your technique that way. Then once you've learned the subleties of bending ebony, you can use it on the next one......Resist the urge to learn everything on the first few. Good luck.

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Jimmy Caldwell
http://www.caldwellguitars.com

I've used SuperSoft II with ebony bindings. I think Woodcraft has it, or veneersupplies.com, but they only have the small size.

Pat

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formerly known around here as burbank
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

I'm currently bending some 0.08 ebony binding on a pipe and the advice above is good. Plenty of heat, a bit of wiping with a damp rag to avoid burning the purfling, and take it slowly.
I use two pieces of wood to press as close to the tangent point. Strong pressing ensures better heat transfer, and pressing close to the tangent ensures there is no levering, and then it bends like plastic. But if you force it just a tiny bit, it snaps.

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Build log

I feel your pain. After obliterating one set of ebony bindings for a 000 sized that I'm building, I opted to buy prebent ebony bindings from LMI. Not what I wanted to do, really, but I'm bending on a pipe, not a bending machine with blankets, and I concluded that enough was enough. As time goes on, I'll get more skillful at it, but I have trouble with bindings anyway (don't seem to have any trouble with sides) and ebony was just about the toughest I've had.

I made a second attempt yesterday. I cranked up the heat a little and backed up the bindings with an old bandsaw blade, taking extra care to support the tangent point, and hey, it bent like butter! Thanks again for helping me out, everyone =)

Sondre