Man, that's hot..

My new, fancy.. Well, my new.. Ok, not new either, but man this is cool.. I mean hot..

Just finished up (still gotta do some clean up on it though, but, it's done) my hot pipe for bending uke sides. Turned out pretty cool. With some safety advice (fire hazzards) from the pros in the Luthier hangout, I came up with a deadman foot controlled switch to operate it. This will make it easier to hands free keep the heat in check, as well as if I get pre-occupied and walk away, it will shut down automatically not to be left on to burn the shop down. It will only come on when I am standing there with my foot on the switch.

It is made using 1-1/4" iron pipe and 1/2" iron pipe for the tighter bend part. The heat is from a heating element & fan from a wagner heat gun. Works fantasic, and gets hot pretty quick. Soon I will be back at bending sides for my Aphid project.. I'm pretty excited about getting back on that..

Wow, that's a lot fancier than mine. I just have a steel pipe with a couple screws to keep it from rotating in an iron bench clamp. I heat it up by sticking a blow torch on the other end. Talk about fire hazard! Although if you have a gas stove you can also just clamp it to that. It's ghetto.

Tony, maybe look into building a side bending machine, very easy, not a lot of money. Need to know your exact shapes though, I like these more than bending pipes

http://www.lint.org/TechNotes/lowcostbender.html

what kind of uke is this? Uke building thread????

That is on my long term "ta-do" list. I already have my shape of concerts, but when I get a couple of those under my belt and sure it's the shape I want to keep, I plan to build one of those things.. Also just want to learn to hand bend 1st too, just so I can say "I used to bend by hand.." hahhah

Man, when you said you were a "tinkerer" you were serious. Nice!

Tudorp said:

That is on my long term "ta-do" list. I already have my shape of concerts, but when I get a couple of those under my belt and sure it's the shape I want to keep, I plan to build one of those things.. Also just want to learn to hand bend 1st too, just so I can say "I used to bend by hand.." hahhah

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There's definitely something to be said about bending on a pipe. Feeling that wood bend with your hands just feels right. Definitely worth the experience, but when I go back to building, I'm going straight for the machine and leave the pipe for custom shapes.

I haven't seen the soldering iron mentioned lately, but I use a 200watt iron in a pipe. Works pretty good and not as dangerous as the "open flame" options. Anyone looking for one can find them under stained glass supplies.

looks good. I like to two size in one unit feature. Nice work!!

Nice set up. I use the same thing!! (without the smaller dia pipe extension). Its worked well for me on several ukes so far