Some people use special made rib bending irons. Some people make their own. The people who make their own are probably trying to save the $100 plus for the store bought one. Guess what I did. How'd you guess? The store bought, and some of the homemade use electric heaters of some kind (I know nothing about electricity) to heat up the aluminum chunk that is milled in a shape like a c bout. I didn't know anything about those things so I used what I had...a paint stripping heat gun. Took some 2 X 4'x and made a stand just big enough for the heat gun to be right under the aluminum. It gets pretty hot, but it seems to cool off fast. I can't keep the heat gun on because the gun is a bigger diameter than the block, so the wood chars. It takes a good 10 minutes or so to get really hot. My shape is not ideal. I made it up from a pattern I had when I first started. Turns out the pattern wasn't very good! Maybe some day I'll by a real one. Or maybe I'll make a new aluminum lug and electrify it. I wouldn't need the height if it was electric, so it would be more stable. I also could put some insulation between the block and the stand to keep the stand from charring as well. It's just charring, not burning. Sure it is. I used it the other day on the cbout ribs. Didn't go too bad. At least nothing snapped! I glued them on using the old school method. You need dowels and string. It was described in a fairly recent Strad magazine article. I'll show it when I glue some other ribs on.
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