Before I started my first guitar, bending the sides seemed like one of the most mysterious parts of the puzzle. That something as rigid as wood could be made to bend and flow so smoothly seemed slightly magical and quite unlikely. All the information I could find said things like "the only way to learn to bend wood is by doing it" and "at a certain point the wood starts to bend". This was not useful. I wish I could offer more useful advise than that, but honestly it was much more intuitive than I had feared, and it is quite simple. You get a hot pipe (seen here is an electric bending iron I bought from Stewmac.com), you dampen, wet or soak the sides depending on the type of wood. And when the heat and the water combine to make steam, the wood starts to become 'plastic', and will eventually bend quite easily.
I was lucky to not break my first set of sides, which was good as they are beautiful Indian Rosewood. The first step was to square up one side on a shooting board with my block plane. One side of the wood had a nice red steak, so I chose to keep that side close to the top to echo the red in the rosette (and eventually the bindings). The shavings from this were so many beautiful shades of red and rose that I kept them all.
Because the waist is the tightest radius, that is usually bent first. In this photo the waist bend is cooling while clamped to a form made in the shape of the guitar. The bend was made by placing a damp cloth on the surface of the wood, and then pressing it against the bending iron. Once the steam had permeated the wood it was possible to bend it by applying pressure to both sides.
After lots of tweaking (I think the first side took over and hour to do), the side fits perfectly onto the wooden form. Because I am building my guitar on an open solera style, the sides need to be very close to the final shape. Other styles of building allow for a bit more wiggle room since the sides will be glued while held in the correct position.
Next I'll show how I started to assemble the guitar.
