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hello looths -

i'm building my first guitar. generally following (and enjoying) the gore/gilet books. after 3 tries, i've yet to get a crack free bend around the nose of a venetian cutaway with a mahogany side. i made a version of the fox bender - using clamps on hand for the waist and cutaway, and a pid temp controller (verified accuracy), and am using a stew mac blanket and three straps. the recipe for my last attempt was: sapelle (for testing) thicknessed to .083" narrowed to .068" around the nose, wetted with supersoft and wrapped in foil for 2 hours, from there into the bender, waist bent first ~ 250 f, followed by the lower bout at ~290 f, then bending and clamping nose slowly ~8 minutes. all bending done at 16 minutes, let it cook at 290 for 10 m, down to 250 for 5 more min, then let it sit clamped 12 hours. alas, still cracking somewhat around the nose (not much springback though).

there is a small (1/32 - 1/16") gap between the slat and form around part of the nose when clamped up - which i imagine allows cracks to form. i will adjust to make as gap free as possible, but there are even cracks forming where the pressure is consistent on both sides. looking at solutions online i see a few versions of bending jigs that keep the slats tensioned while applying pressure to the cauls - this seems like it would help address the room to crack problem.

from the other recent side bending question here i saw answers to both go more slowly and to go faster. i understand that you don't want the wood to be dried out in either case.

looking for any advice on how to get better results (including perhaps scrap the mahogany for now and try rosewood, switch to a florentine cutaway, ...)