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I use West system epoxy. I have found that drying the veneers before laminating adds to the stability. I leave the sides in the form for several days to a week until the epoxy is fully cured. Very little to no spring back even if the sides sit on the shelf for months. I do get some "bleed through " with epoxy, but since I pore fill with epoxy this is not a problem.

I'd use West or Unibond. I prefer Unibond because it dries like glass and doesn't bleed through. The downside is that the resin only comes in large quantity and has a shelf-life.

Both West Systems epoxy and Unibond 800 will bleed through depending on the porosity of the wood. But they both have thickeners or additives that you add to make the glue more viscous and will bleed through less. I did a bunch of test sides with both glues and I could tell little difference in the resulting pieces. I finally settled on the epoxy due to the ability to use an epoxy pore filler that hides bleed throughs, as Clay mentioned.

Unfortunately I had already laminated the first set of sides with titebond before I read this. It's alright though, I figured that I'd just do both and compare the two. I have West Systems and Titebonds both handy in the shop. I do hate the smell of epoxy though and it burns my eyes. Anyway it does seem like it cures much harder. I don't have the epoxy offcuts yet but the titebond ones potato chipped. However, I am very happy with both results. So much so that I'm about to remove a tail block from an unlaminated side set and go ahead and laminate that one as well even though it's at the lower end of the 6 in the works. I don't believe I'll ever build another guitar without laminated sides. I had laminated before but I did not get the results that I got with the new jig. My only regret is not building two of them, so I could do each guitar in the same session and let them cure at the same time. I don't have enough C-Clamps for that anyway though. That will be something to do for the next round though. Pictures to follow.

Here’s the coco/mahogany with Titebond.







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Second coco with West Systems Epoxy (haven’t trimmed the rim yet.



Not pretty but it works



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"My only regret is not building two of them, so I could do each guitar in the same session and let them cure at the same time. I don't have enough C-Clamps for that anyway though"

I have laminated both sides at the same time on the same mold. The slight difference in size isn't real noticeable after they are trimmed and put in the outside form. Putting a thin metal slat between them might help with the flatness ( I sometimes use HPL ). When doing that you have to be careful with orienting things - there is no "unbending" laminated sides.

And to play the broken record one more time - drying out the veneers before laminating with epoxy seems to add stability to the final product.

I /ve used UF glue, epoxy, system 3 and titebond 1 .If your careless like me , you can miss an open slight seam and have to reglue . No worries

I'll use my steel bending slat next time. I'd also like to get some steel strips installed to reinforce the MDF and make the clamping pressure more even so I can really tighten the C-Clamps down without worrying about having uneven pressure result in a slight deformity.

I'm not too worried about that potochippiness at the ends though. I bend them longer than they need to be since the ends tend to do that and they fall outside of the clamping area. The worst (if not all) of it can be trimmed off before gluing to the blocks. Seems to work well so far. Maybe I'll add a few more clamping cauls and clamps down the line to eliminate it even further. Too many other things to do at the moment though!

I did that with a set of Narra before building this jig. It was actually the reason I built the jig, but I was able to reglue as well and everything looks good now. I only worry that once the binding channel is cut another area slight space will show itself. I'll just re-glue if that's the case but it slows things down.

"I'd also like to get some steel strips installed to reinforce the MDF and make the clamping pressure more even so I can really tighten the C-Clamps down without worrying about having uneven pressure result in a slight deformity."

I've glued formica on some of my bending forms to create a smooth surface and the kerfkore also has a smooth face. I'm laminating the old thicker veneers, but still they are veneer, so the smoother the better.
Also, again, I leave the laminated sides in the mold for about a week until the epoxy fully cures. After that I have had some sit on the shelf for over a year and still hold their shape.

A quick update. Here are the cutoffs of the laminated sides.

On the left is flat sawn Cocobolo laminated with mahogany using West Systems epoxy.

On the right is perfectly quartered Cocobolo laminated with mahogany using Titebond II.

Although both rim sets are perfectly acceptable (both are pretty flat) I do believe that I will sleep better using exopy for laminations. It seems that the water in the Titebond may be the culprit.


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It only has to be pretty if you're posting build threads for customers.

Cool experiment and I'm glad you're getting the results you're after.

Where do you get your kerfing from? I'm looking to try a something different and that looks interesting.

That's the multi-axis kerfing from Kevin Ryan, previously known as A4. It looks like production's suspended for a bit right now.