Official Luthiers Forum!

my first thought would have use Teflon strips and glued in the bwb purfling first. If the wood is bent the hard way as it appears. There could be an issue with breaking ans you put it in doing it that way. After second thought I would have glued the purfling to the wood an bent as a unit and installed as single piece.

I don't know, but I like the way it looks.

Al

Todd,

That looks really nice!

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

That really looks nice, Todd! I gotta' use this idea on something soon.

Seems like Zebrawood radial purfling might look cool. I've often thought about using burl strips that way, I just never got around to it.

long

_________________
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Todd, that does look great. I've been thinking of doing this with burl.

"Treating it like shell worked fine" - does that mean using a Teflon strip? Or, are you just talking about snapping off sections? Or both?

Thanks,

Dennis

_________________
Dennis Leahy
Duluth, MN, USA
7th Sense Multimedia

That's beautiful, Todd. I really like it a lot.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Todd,

That looks sweet. I've been thinking about doing something similar with bigleaf maple burl to match a rosette. I was questioning whether or not it was worth doing, but seeing how this came out I'm going to give it a try.

Thanks for the inspiration.


Bob K

Todd i love this and the idea of treatingit like shell.

I had tried with some curly maple to bend it the hard way and broke every attempt. I di not think to treat it like shell Brovo

The reason why herringbone and rope purflings came to be is that when the wood is at an acute angle to the sides, as the purfling is bent to the profile, the wood can flex to follow the contour with minimal breaking.

It is not that you can not have a purfling that is at a radial angle to the shape of the curve, it is just that it will crack and have gaps more than if the were laying at a more acute angle.

To get the most consistent radial purfling you would have to cut segments of wood across the grain in short sections and then join them or place them into a slot and try to get them as tight together as possible. That would also mean that you would want the width of the strip as narrow as possible to facilitate bending.

Todd that looks really sharp.Maybe I`ll give that a try someday.Well I mean if I had your talent.
                               James

_________________
James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

whoa, thats a bummer about the cedar top, todd. but on the bright side i really like that purfling. that is one of the coolest things ive seen in a while. seriously, im impressed.  

_________________
sweat the small stuff.

Yeah no matter what sometimes it`s just Murphy`s Law.The real story is you never give up and wind up with a great guitar.Hats off to ya.
                        James

_________________
James W Bolan
Nashville Tennessee

Todd, it looks like your perseverance has payed off.
That looks great.
So, to help my 2D mind, we're looking at end grain on the Coco, right? Next, how did you saw those tiny little strips, without having all of them end up inside the belly of your tablesaw???

Thanks,

Steve

_________________
From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Todd, I would have never thought to do something like this, but you have really got something there!

Thanks for sharing this tip. I'll have to try it out sometime for myself

_________________
Reguards,

Ken H

Todd excellent job, that looks really swell. I've wanted to try that myself sometime. Treating it like shell is an great idea. That was one of my missing pieces of the puzzle. Thanks for sharing.

Charles Freeborn has a material he sells called Astro-guard which I've been thinking would also be nice for this type of purfling application. You could add a splash of almost any color or combinations of color.
Here's the link: http://www.charlesfreeborn.com/ASTROguard.html
It's pretty cool, although quite different from the look of natural wood.
Charles is around here once in a while, maybe he could tell us more about it?
Anyway that's just an excellent job Todd.

_________________
Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com