Hoping to get the attention of newbies. A word of caution.

No one has mentioned the drying time for the inner and outer stems after steam bending and clamping them back onto the stem forms before epoxy glueing the 2 quarter inch strips to make the inner and outer stems.I It requires at least 5 days on the stem forms - Remove and separate to air dry another 2 - 3 days before epoxy glueing. Then the strips should be ready to epoxy glue and re-clamping. Then leave them on another 5 days to set. I brought the stem forms into the house to dry. This procedure worked for me.

I had waited 3 days - removed from stem forms and glued and re-clamped, then waited another 3 days - removed the glued strips - it looked ok but after 2-3 hours the strips separated in the middle. This happened 4 times. My assumption is; incomplete drying of the strips and the epoxy glue did not hold due to the moisture in the strips. The epoxy and hardner ratio was measured right to the miniscus and used MAS wood flour mixed to the consistency of soft peanut butter and spread on both surfaces.

Another possibility for the failure is that I used MAS slow hardner. On my future glueing - I will use fast or medium hardner to eliminate the possibility of the slow hardner being the culprit.

My impatience cost me a month of frustration and waisted 4 40" pieces of Black walnut (outer stems). Also 2 beautiful long pieces of WRC. (inner stems).