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I need to make a set of sides be a little bit wider. I was thinking of sawing down the middle and gluing a 3/4" piece of ebony in the middle between the two halves. Could Titebond III or some other water resistant glue be used that would survive the bending process?

I think I have seen a picture of this somewhere. I am hoping the collective wisdom of this forum will provide some insight.

Check out Howard Klepper's "Dovetail Madness".
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

You can get an extra 3/16" at the top & bottom by gluing the linings that much proud of the sides.

A strip down the middle has a good chance of looking bad, unless the depth is the same at the neck and heel.
You can probably work out the geometry so that it looks OK, but it is something to consider.

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A man hears what he wants to hear, and disreguards the rest. Paul Simon

Hide glue will take a lot of heat, unless you use water in the bending process. Failing that powdered resin glue (urea formaldehyde) can take serious heat and it's not affected by water, which is why it's used by the boat builders. In fact I'm pretty certain it has no known solvent. It's also plenty strong enough too.

Here's a picture of two piece sides I made for a Terz guitar currently in progress:



I glued the pieces together with the Lee Valley cabinet glue. The pieces are zebra wood and bubinga. I wasn't sure how the joint would stand up to the bending process but there was no problem at all. In fact, on one of the sides, I positioned the board about 1" out of place on the bender so I had to re-position it and heat it up a second time to get the waist in the right place. Again, no problem. So based on this I would say to give it a try.

Pat

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There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Pat,

Your experience is encouraging. I have never heard of Lee Valley Cabinet maker's glue until now.

I've been using it for close to 20 years, for cabinetry. I used it a couple of times for guitar repairs without any problem. It's called 202GF.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker