Bending Zirciote

Today I bent ziricote sides with a bending Iron. I sanded the Sides down to 1.6mm and it lasts about one hour per side but the result is good.
 
I use heat bending over a form and find ziricote forgiving and easy to bend. Very porous and a challenge to pore fill, but I love this wood. One of the prettiest woods available to my eye if you like highly figured wood.
 
I have done some experimenting with steam bending, but can't speak to that wood specifically. I can't say my method is perfected or foolproof, but one thing I did find is I can successfully bend thicker pieces, 2.0mm if not a touch more, with a tight waist radius even.

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Very porous and a challenge to pore fill, but I love this wood. One of the prettiest woods available to my eye if you like highly figured wood.

I agree regarding the look - one of my favorites. I've only ever used it for fretboards and bridges though, and I usually just polish it after a few coats of a drying oil (Stewmac's colortone fretboard finishing oil). I find it polishes nicely like that and gets a solid even shine, almost like ebony - I wouldn't have considered it porous but then again I've never tried to pore fill it. What is your finish process and how to you pore fill?
 
What is your finish process and how to you pore fill?

Kind of hijacking the thread here but... my finish is shellac. When it comes to pore fill where do I start? Seems I've tried everything and for my money epoxy resin (z-poxy) is the old standard that really works. But so will you. Work that is... Some ziricote doesn't so much have pores as it has frigging crevasses. Especially on quarter sawn stuff. Good candidate for just letting "wood be wood" and not doing a pore fill at all. The crevasses can be kind of an interesting look to my eye.

Now back to our regular programming...
 
Thanks for all the help guys. I ended up building a heated side bender, so after I repaired all the cracks with CA glue I steamed the sides for 30 mins & then into the side bender. The heat did take the glue apart but I was expecting that, I just wanted it to hold long enough for me to clamp it. The sides are out & after re-applying the CA and a sanding they look good. It's been a steep learning curve going from bending Santos to Ziricote, but as my father used to say "If it was easy, it would be no fun". :)
 
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