Staining on binding/purfling after bending

[Steve Schwebel]

Used my Fox style bender to bend a set of maple binding with StewMac's BWB purfling titebonded on.  Got a lot of blackish/teal colored staining. Just slightly spritzed with water before bending and wrapped in brown butcher paper. Bent at 163c, let it sit for 5 minutes, and then cooled down. Did not see anything like this before when I bent the mahogany sides using same process. Any ideas? Hopefully most of it will scrape or sand off.  Total beginner here so I am not sure if this is normal or not. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

[Paul McEvoy]

should scrape/sand off I think.

On Sun, Aug 24, 2025 at 11:37 AM Steve Schwebel <sisch...@gmail.com> wrote:

Used my Fox style bender to bend a set of maple binding with StewMac's BWB purfling titebonded on.  Got a lot of blackish/teal colored staining. Just slightly spritzed with water before bending and wrapped in brown butcher paper. Bent at 163c, let it sit for 5 minutes, and then cooled down. Did not see anything like this before when I bent the mahogany sides using same process. Any ideas? Hopefully most of it will scrape or sand off.  Total beginner here so I am not sure if this is normal or not. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

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Paul McEvoy
207-699-9526

[Charles Tauber]

As Paul stated, it will probably scrape off. The concern, of course, is mostly with the exterior surfaces that you'll see on the finished instrument.

What sort of metal are you using for the bending slats? Certain metals/finishes can discolour light-coloured woods while bending. You might want to wrap white-coloured woods in aluminum foil rather than paper. 

163 C (325 F) is likely hotter than you need. Difficult to tell from the photos, but some of the marking might be light scorching, suggesting the use of a lower temperature.

Presumably, the purfling dyes are Color-fast. You can test that by wetting a piece of it and wiping it with a white paper towel. There shouldn't be any color transfer.

[Paul McEvoy]

oh yeah, Maple tends to bend pretty easily, I'd try maxing out around 280.  I've definitely gone hotter, but not on purpose...

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Paul McEvoy
207-699-9526

[John Peters]

If the sanding doesn't work oxalic acid will take it away.  I have use it with good results on mahogany and mango a couple of times.

[Steve Schwebel]

Just to follow up - I did reach out to StewMac and they believe that using regular Titebond instead of a high temperature AR glue like Titebond III might be the cause of the staining.

[Brock Poling]

I’ve used Titebond forever… I am pretty sure that isn’t the reason. 

What kind of water did you use?  Distilled? 

 

From: obrien...@googlegroups.com <obrien...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Steve Schwebel <sisch...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, August 25, 2025 at 4:51 PM
To: Robert O'Brien Guitar Building Forum <obrien...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Staining on binding/purfling after bending

You don't often get email from sisch...@gmail.com. Learn why this is important

Just to follow up - I did reach out to StewMac and they believe that using regular Titebond instead of a high temperature AR glue like Titebond III might be the cause of the staining.

On Sunday, August 24, 2025 at 11:37:44 AM UTC-4 Steve Schwebel wrote:

Used my Fox style bender to bend a set of maple binding with StewMac's BWB purfling titebonded on.  Got a lot of blackish/teal colored staining. Just slightly spritzed with water before bending and wrapped in brown butcher paper. Bent at 163c, let it sit for 5 minutes, and then cooled down. Did not see anything like this before when I bent the mahogany sides using same process. Any ideas? Hopefully most of it will scrape or sand off.  Total beginner here so I am not sure if this is normal or not. Thanks in advance for any thoughts!

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[Kevin Sjostrand]

I've used regular Titebond and Titebond 3 and not had staining, but I have had issues with the delamination later.

Now days I use a bunch of clothes pins, clamp the purfling to the binding and then wick in CA. If you leave say a quarter inch between the clips, wick in these areas first then when dry unclip and wick in the rest.

Easy to scrape things down after with a razor blade or scraper.

I've never had any issues in the bending and gluing in of the bindings. And it's stress free gluing up the binding/purfling combo this way.

Give it a try.

Kevin

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[Joe Shuter]

When you use water for bending try to use distilled water. Tap water  has caused me problems in the past. Scooter

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[Brock Poling]

I know this isn’t the topic of the OP, but I have recently been turned on to Titebond 50, it is a high heat glue.  It will resist delamination in the bender. 

It only comes in 55 gallon barrels but there are some folks on Etsy and eBay selling it in smaller sizes.  I am trying our StewMac team to repackage it into small sizes for the luthier market.

 

 

 

 

 

From: obrien...@googlegroups.com <obrien...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Kevin Sjostrand <kevinsj...@gmail.com>
Date: Monday, August 25, 2025 at 5:09 PM
To: obrien...@googlegroups.com <obrien...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: Staining on binding/purfling after bending

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[Steve Schwebel]

I used distilled water. Others have suggested that the staining may have been due to my bending at 163C instead of a lower temperature.

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[Robbie O'Brien]

Brock,

Is that the same as Titebond Extend?

Robbie

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From: 'Brock Poling' via Robert O'Brien Guitar Building Forum <obrien...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, August 25, 2025 14:12

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[David]

Franklin's description makes "50" sound like a different glue:

Titebond 50: It is fast-setting with excellent heat resistance, suitable for edge and face gluing and general assembly applications, and performs well in cold press equipment.

Extend: Titebond Extend Wood Glue is a slower setting version of Titebond Original Wood Glue. It offers superior performance in a broad range of applications, including edge and face gluing. It is particularly useful in complex operations such as curved railings and other assemblies that require more time to align. ... Excellent heat-resistance

I use Extend often in my shop for vacuum laminating sides and building up laminated linings, and appreciate the slow setting time for complicated jobs. 50 sounds interesting, though I'd want to be careful to not use it in joints that might need to be heat reversed! :)

-David

[Brock Poling]

For sure.  The only application I have experimented with it on (so far) is making custom top purflings.  Generally I use a sheets of .01” vulcanized fiber with a center wood laminate.  “b/w/curly mahogany/w/b” type of thing.  They seem to go through the bender without delaminating the purflings.

 

 

 

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[Paul McEvoy]

Not seeing it on eBay?

Paul McEvoy
207-699-9526

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[Steve Schwebel]

It does appear that It will likely all sand off. I am using stainless steel slats so I wouldn't have thought that would be the cause. I will definitely try a lower temperature next time. Thank you both for your feedback.