1 or 2 piece sides for A style

[Stanley Cox]

OK builders, Do you use sides bent out of 1 long piece or bend the sides out of 2 pieces?

Stanley

[Rick Turner]

Most use bookmatched two piece sides, though there is precedence for one piece wraps. Most folks have benders that do one side per setup, though with mandos you can bend more than one at a time. I've often thought of making a bender setup that would let me bend the sides for my pancake mando kits in one long wrap.

It may be different for those who bend on a hot pipe; there it would be no big deal to do a one piece side, at least for A style mandos.

I've got a KayKraft Model C guitar that has a very long piece of rosewood bent around to make up most of the sides...no seam at the butt. Pretty cool.

[sunburst]

I made an A with one long piece for the rim once. It was a PITA bending that loooong piece of wood on a hot pipe. You have to clear half of the room to make enough space for the thing, and when you get almost all the way around the first part you bent starts getting in your way. Also, the part bent to fit the head block has to be exactly right - no adjusting by trimming at the butt joint. Now I use two pieces.

[Skip Kelley]

I am working on another A model and was going to do 1 piece sides but, thanks to you guys, I will stick with two pieces! thanks!

[LVH]

I made a hot pipe, I thought that was what most people used...... I was thinking of doing a one peice rim. is it alot different?

[j. condino]

I make them with both; the limiting factor is just the lengths of wood that I have on hand. The single piece is my personal preference; a little more work, but nice details.

j.
www.condino.com

[Gail Hester]

I do it both ways. It depends on the wood and whether I want to use certain sections or if I cut my own side wood or got it with the back wood, it's length, etc.. It does make it a bit trickier without a built in center line but sometimes it doesn't make sense to cut a beautiful piece of wood in half to just to make it easy.

[Stanley Cox]

Thanks All, I had surmised that it came down to what you wanted to use. I can see me trying to bend a 30"-36" piece of maple.
Thanks again for all the good info,
Stanley

[Hans]

I've always done two piece. As long as you have a good joint, nothing much shows...the T/P covers it up.

[grandmainger]

I do two pieces. I like to have a little vertical strip of binding at the butt joining top and bottom bindings. I think it looks nice and matched the crosspieces we put as point protectors.
Having said that, as Hans pointed out, once the tailpiece is on, not much of it is visible!

[thistle3585]

Rick,
For my A/N mando, I made a bender with a heat blanket to do it using one piece. I also tried it by bending and leaving the seam at the tailblock as well as doing it with the seam at the headblock. I preferred doing it with the seam at the tailblock. It allowed me to clamp the headblock into place then use stainless straps to pull in each side. I had springs at the end of the straps that criss crossed at the tailblock and attached to hooks screwed into the base. I haven't built one in awhile but I still have the setup somewhere.

[Robbie McHone]

Well I finished up my first F-style and figured I might as well try an A-style. I don't have a piece long enough to make a one piece rim so I guess it will have to be a two piece. My question is what type of joint do you use where the two pieces meet at the tail block? Boy this sure is addictive.

[sunburst]

We call it a butt joint...
but there isn't really a joint between the two side pieces structurally. The two pieces meet end grain to end grain, so the joint between them has no real strength, the lap joint with the end block is what holds the rim together, not the butt joint between the two sides. A scarf joint or something exotic could be used, but the end block needs to be there for "normal" construction anyway, so there's no particular strength to be gained by using a joint other than the usual butt joint.

[Steevarino]

Good Question! On my flatties, I have done it both ways. I still can't figure out which way I like best. With a two piece rim set, you have to make sure you get a good joint, as Hans pointed out. With one piece, it is a bit longer, as somewhat more difficult to manage while running it through the bending process. I built a fixture that holds my sides and sort of helps hold them to the desired shape while the wood "sets" after bending. I built it so I can use either one piece or two. Truth be told, I usually go with two pieces for a few reasons, some of them being: I have more short boards to get side wood from than long ones, short boards are easier to soak (pre-bending), and I sort of like the look that a bookmatched set of sides offers.

Here's that fixture I mentioned....

[thistle3585]

Steve,
Do you bend your sides before clamping them into the jig or soak and clamp until dry? I know there is a pretty subtle bend. A friend of mine cold bends his uke sides. Nice jig setup.

[sunburst]

Steve's rim shape would be about as easy to bend with one or two pieces, other than handling the longer wood of the one piece rim.
The complications of more-or-less-Gibson-carved-top-shaped A-styles are the reversing curves at the head block area. With the pancake shape, the piece can be bent long and trimmed to fit the head block after bending. With the Gibson-like shape, the reversing curves have to exactly fit the head block while the piece has to be exactly the right length.
If I was building a "pancake" mandolin and had wood long enough, I would consider a one piece rim.

[Jim Rowland]

There used to be a guy out in Colorado who sold mandolin kits for nearly nothing. The two identical ribs were centered and glued to the tail block. You then gently held them by the tips and pulled them down to the neck block which had presawn slots to receive them. This gave you a symmetrical teardrop shape which only needed some lining to complete it. Ten minutes of work minus drying time. He also sold a guitar kit which worked the same way. Both instruments had solid spruce tops and very thin mahogany plywood backs and solid mahogany necks. They looked a little strange,but sounded fine,especially the guitar.
Jim