BYO: The Pliage

Bones

Yeah Andrew, it's essentially the same method but that top in the vid doesn't have a pliage. I did use a 6 degree bent form (and the 'go-bar deck' shown in the pictures in the previous post) to keep everything in alignment. With a pliage it is quite a bit trickier to keep the halves aligned. As far as the sideways clamping force, a lot of builders just rely on tape to keep the joint closed while the glue sets but I was not confident that the blue painters tape that I used wouldn't come loose (since it is low tack) so I added the clamps just as a backup. It really doesn't take much force to close the joint as long as the halves are planed well and truly straight. I actually barely put much tension on the four bar clamps at all since the tape had already done the work. Like I said, the clamps were just backup in case the tape came loose. As it turned out the tape was fine. I left the setup undisturbed for 24 hours as is my normal modus operandi and the tape was still hanging in there. I wanted to use the blue low tack tape since pulling tape off of spruce can pull up some of the soft wood fibers and I wanted to keep that to a minimum since the wood was already sanded fairly close to my finished thickness with just a bit extra to allow for finish sanding after joining. To further minimize the pulling up of wood fibers I used just a little/low heat from a hair drier to soften the adhesive on the tape before I pulled it and carefully peeled it slowly sideways. But not enough heat to really heat up the glue joint so that the new joint wasn't compromised. Details. details....

Buco

I for one am eagerly awaiting for your guitar to be finished @Bones
I knew you built instruments before but honestly I didn't expect this degree of proficiency. I mean, your work so far looks impeccable, details refined to the bone.

Bones

Hey thanks Buco but I'm really just a hobbyist. Just doing it to build something 'playable' (neck-wise) since my left hand arthritis is getting so bad that I'm thinking a modern shape neck (i.e. not a traditional Selmer shape) and short scale might help. If it sounds good that will be icing on the cake.

Don't hold your breath though, it may take a while. I only get out in the shop sporadically and it's surf season right now :-) . But I'll keep u posted just for fun as I move forward. It's won't be fancy though as I don't have time to build in any frills or ornamentation. Just need to "get 'er did" as they say. I need to cut the sound hole next but to save time I'm thinking I may even skip the rosette.

DarrenKingUK

This topic seems to have gone a bit cold so I thought I'd warm it up again. Here are a few photos of the pliage press which I have recently built. It is proving a great success although I may increase the diameter of the heated pressure bar to reduce the sharpness of the crease. It's currently 1" diameter but I have replacement aluminium tubes of 1.5" and 2" diameter. Does anyone have an opinion on which might be the most suitable option?

Bones

Wow that looks cool Darren. Hard to see it from the pics though. What is it air pressure? I think a 1" diameter is fine. How do you heat the wood? What angle and how is the press bed made?

DarrenKingUK

Hi Bones, I have found that I don't need any more than 2 bar to the pneumatic cylinders so this equates to about 60kg of pressure on the heated aluminium tube. It has got a 425w cartridge heating inside the aluminium and a thermocouple on the outside so that the temperature can be controlled. The angle of the recess in the bed is 8° but you end up with about 6° in the board because it springs back ever so slightly. I put a strip of damp cotton fabric along the line of the pliage and then drop the heated bar down on to it so it is steaming the wood along the crease as well as forcing it into the 8° recess. The whole process takes about 45 seconds and the samples that I have done haven't continued to straighten after the initial spring back at all.The press bed is a piece of 20mm thick high pressure laminate that I machined on my CNC router. I'll see if I can post a video of it working over the weekend.
Regards
Darren

Bones

That's totally cool Darren. Yeah like to see a vid. I've been dreaming about building more of a fixture but I don't make enough guitars to justify it other than it would be a fun project.