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Permalink Reply by Zeke Leonard on May 10, 2011 at 7:41am

Hal-

 

For the first one, here is how I steam out dents:  Get an old towel and a really hot iron.  Make the towel damp but not sopping and lay it on the dent folded in half.  Put the iron on top of the towel for just a couple of seconds and remove.  You should hear it hiss, if not it is not hot enough.  Do that a couple of times and the dent should start to steam out.  Careful not to scorch the wood, though.  Streaming only works so far, but it should raise the grain back a little.  Here are a couple of caveats:  This process can (but does no always) cause the plys in plywood to separate, so it if is a plywood box, do it at your own risk.  Also, the steam will raise the grain of the wood around the dent as well, so you might need to sand back the wood around where the dent is.

 

Now to the warped lid:  Wood (as you probably know) expands when it gets wet.  So what likely happened here is that the bottom ply got moist and expanded.  Often cigar boxes have dehumidifiers in them so the inside of the box is much drier than the outside.  Once the dehumidifier is removed, the very dry wood on the inside absorbs moisture from the air and expands.  So how to counter act the swelling of the inside ply?  Steaming the top as you mentioned above seems like a good shot to me, just do it in light passes and do it carefully.  That might make the outside ply swell and remove the warp.  If you resort to interior bracing, you should not need screws, just glue and clamp them on and let them sit for a couple of hours.

 

Hope this helps, looking forward to seeing the finished pieces.

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Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on May 10, 2011 at 9:27am

Thanks Zeke, I needed that reinforcement of my thoughts.  Will try both.

Zeke Leonard said:

Hal-

 

For the first one, here is how I steam out dents:  Get an old towel and a really hot iron.  Make the towel damp but not sopping and lay it on the dent folded in half.  Put the iron on top of the towel for just a couple of seconds and remove.  You should hear it hiss, if not it is not hot enough.  Do that a couple of times and the dent should start to steam out.  Careful not to scorch the wood, though.  Streaming only works so far, but it should raise the grain back a little.  Here are a couple of caveats:  This process can (but does no always) cause the plys in plywood to separate, so it if is a plywood box, do it at your own risk.  Also, the steam will raise the grain of the wood around the dent as well, so you might need to sand back the wood around where the dent is.

 

Now to the warped lid:  Wood (as you probably know) expands when it gets wet.  So what likely happened here is that the bottom ply got moist and expanded.  Often cigar boxes have dehumidifiers in them so the inside of the box is much drier than the outside.  Once the dehumidifier is removed, the very dry wood on the inside absorbs moisture from the air and expands.  So how to counter act the swelling of the inside ply?  Steaming the top as you mentioned above seems like a good shot to me, just do it in light passes and do it carefully.  That might make the outside ply swell and remove the warp.  If you resort to interior bracing, you should not need screws, just glue and clamp them on and let them sit for a couple of hours.

 

Hope this helps, looking forward to seeing the finished pieces.

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Permalink Reply by Outhouse Instruments on May 10, 2011 at 12:14pm

Those spots you're trying to remove .... that's called character and Mojo. If you fix them boxes, they might never sound right!

 

AFKAM    ;)

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on May 11, 2011 at 12:31am

I have a bunch of padron box's and love how they sound. They are almost always warped. I put 2 or 3 tiny screws in the lid on the open edge. The middle hits the thru neck at the front and back edges to hold it up. I had one that did not need the screws but after building it I found it sounded better with them added.  As for the dent, I'm with Matt on that one, character.

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Permalink Reply by Brian "Pork Pie" Anderson on June 9, 2011 at 9:28am

that style of Padron box works best with the lid as the bottom and the bottom as the sound board...

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Permalink Reply by MichaelS Country Boy Guitars on June 10, 2011 at 1:25am

Brian, I use that Padron all the time right side up and they sound great!

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Permalink Reply by Habanera Hal on June 10, 2011 at 1:33am

I have about a dozen Padrons right now.  About half of them have a "flat" lid - no supporting wood, which probably makes them more prone to warp.  I'm going to use these with the lid on the bottom and attach a rail inside the box to screw the lid to, screws on the bottom won't be too noticeable.  The other boxes have a "fitted" lid.  I think these are better used with the lid as the soundboard.  JMHO.

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