[Benn Kovco]

Thanks again Michael, super helpful. One more question, in this arrangement you are using oven/parchment paper correct?
I need to get myself a second heat blanket but will test this out with the same doug fir material and report back here. It will be a minute as I have some travel and won’t be back at the work bench in earnest until late January. Thank you for all the pointers!

Cheers,
Benn

[Benn Kovco]

Hello Michael!

Thanks very much for the tips and the feedback, it is very much appreciated! To correct my lazy language first, I was using ‘wax paper’ very loosely and generically. I am of course using the commonly available parchment paper. I did note Chris’ mention of using aluminum foil instead, then your advice on listening to Chris 😉 I’ll probably give that a try too.

Appreciate the tips on temperature adjustment. Regarding using two heat blankets, I’m wondering what the layering of metal sheilding and heat blanket looks like. Working from the outside in towards the form my current setup looks like:

Metal
Wood
Metal
Heat blanket
Metal

Would I simply be adding another layer of heat blanket/metal on top of that already 5-layer sandwich?

Thanks again,
Benn

[Benn Kovco]

Appreciate that Chris! I’m going to play around much more with the temperature as I have plenty of this fir that I can use for testing, and if I bend up a set of sides that work, well I’m on my way to another instrument. Interestingly, I did some sanding and even the worst staining you can see in that photo came out by removing less than 0.2mm. When I cut through the stained area I was surprised to see it was so superficial. Thanks very much for sharing your experience.

[Benn Kovco]

Thanks for the feedback Randy – the second side was much cleaner using a lower temp, so that seems to be on the right track. Cheers, Benn