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I'd like to make up some bindings with black and white trim attached, resembling the stuff S-M or LMI sells. I got as far as understanding I'd be starting with a 1/4" thick sheet of lumber. For the black and white binding sheets, I'm open to suggestions as to what to buy and where to buy it. I'm guessing I'm looking for .020", maybe .010" thick veneer of some kind. To control waste I'd like to have all the materials roughly the same size, 36" long by 3" or 4" wide. I have the ability to vacuum-bag the composite sheet.

Also suggested adhesive that would withstand bending without delaminating.

Thanks, folks.

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Peter Havriluk

Fiber works really well for this type of thing as it is very strong and does not split. Although when you thickness sand it you have to be careful not to get a burr by Leading with that edge. I'm sure any type of veneer would work.

I used Titebond 3 once and it didn't seem to delaminate during the bending process. I never thought about vacuuming, but that sounds like a great idea! Has anyone tried this?

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Pat

I've done this a few time but only with wood veneers I cut and thicknessed myself. There is a fair amount of material wasted getting the veneers this way so I haven't used expensive timbers. I used TiteBond III for its heat resistance and have had no issues bending them on the hot pipe.

I didn't use vacuum just lots of clamps and cauls. I lay up the whole glue up in one go and it takes some fussing to keep the 3 veneer lines down once they start to curl from the glue. I use my benchtop as the bottom caul clamping the binding log purfling side down (so the stiff binding stick is on top) then add another thick stick on top of that as a caul. Then I just use every clamp I can get my hands on and clamp hard. Visualize clamping pressure propagating like a cone at 45 degrees in all directions. Space the clamps so that you have those cones overlapping a bit. The thicker the cauls the further apart the clamps can be (assuming you have enough to provide adequate total pressure). It is my belief (and I'm happy to have this corrected by people who know more than I) that I can get more PSI using a bunch of properly spaced F clamps than I could with vacuum.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

This is how I do it as well. Fiber veneer from RC tonewoods, Titebond 3 for the glueup. For clamping I use the wide binder clips from Staples. I use the medium ones. Line your bench with waxpaper or some type of paper, glue them up and clamp away. Push down on the purfling right where you are about to add the clip to make sure its pushed down all the way. Use the drum sander to clean up.

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The last batch I made I had found some really nice very dark cocobolo, cut it into 1"-1/4" X 36" strips, sanded to .180" milled up some quarter sawn curly maple 1"-1/4" wide 0.030 (white) and Pau Santo 1"-1/4" wide 0.030" (Black) glued it up with titebond III. Sliced it .100" on my bandsaw then sanded to .080" in the thickness sander perfect bends easily and I nailed the direction on the curly maple showing the curl.

Thanks, folks, especially for the Titebond III advice. This is great! Hadn't followed the idea that water-resistant glue would be useful. Duh! I was thinking of epoxy, lots of experience using it for laminations in other places.

Seeing as I have no means to thickness sand wood, I'm limiting myself to the thickness of whatever I can buy over somebody's counter.

As for how much clamping pressure vacuum bagging offers, I have a relatively weak diaphragm vacuum pump which limits me to somewhere around half an atmosphere, 7.5 psi. Seven-and-a-half pounds per square inch. Good part about vacuum bagging is that water-based air-drying glues dry really quickly, as the vacuum pump is purging the air/water vapor from the bag very energetically. And these glues dry by doing just that without a vacuum, but more slowly.

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Peter Havriluk

TIII is perfect for this operation as it takes about 200*F for it to fully cure, and because of the way it behaves as it approaches that point it won't delaminate...I don't think the fact it is "waterproof" has anything to do with it.

I use Gorilla glue (that hideously foaming poly glue) to glue the purflings to the binding slat. This never delaminates as you bend the bindings with purflings in the bender. I also tape all of the binding strips tightly together before binding just to support the purfling lines on all sides during the binding process.

I don't have a vacuum setup, so I just clamp the glue-up between two boards with a layer of thick plastic to keep the stack from sticking to the clamping boards.

I love to glue up interesting purflings but if I am using regular old B/W/B I buy it on eBay from China. Because it works well and is almost free.

Some suggestions for when you do your own. Yes on the TB 3 and whatever you put in the middle, I suggest your 2 outside laminates be black fibre. My experience has been that it holds the whole package together best.

Good Luck and Have Fun!

Do you ever see long strips on there? Like 48" or longer? I have one piece of b/w/b purfling that came in a kit from somewhere (for the life of me I can't remember where). I would like to get long strips like that so that there is no possibility of a gap when using it for top and back purfling.

In fact, I just went and measured the piece I have. It's 65" long, 0.08 tall and 0.06 thick, B/W/B. It's fiber as best I can tell, definitely not plastic. It looks like it is pliable enough that it could be used for top / back and also for side purfling. I've never tried installing the side purfling separate from the binding, but I'm going to do a arm bevel on an upcoming build and I'll need to do them separately for that.

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I also use pu glue for any veneer lamination. Doesn’t add any water to the wood and never delaminates while bending. Also super handy for purflings, herringbone, etc. takes 4-6 hours to cure though.

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I found the elusive part number for this, it was indeed from an LMI kit but they don't seem to carry the item any longer. The part number was PFL12. I'll start a new thread to see if anyone has found a similar product.

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I understand the desire for a long purfling strip to avoid having a joint but I would think a 65" purfling strip would be awfully awkward to wrangle as you are installing binidings. After all, you are going to have a binding joint at the tail end anyway so why not joint your purfling there too. It will make installation much easier without having to worry about an extra 3 feet of purfling getting twisted, tangled and snagged as you work your way around the body. The purfling joint will be much easier to keep clean and unnoticeable that the binding joint at the tail anyway (especially with light colored binding).

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Unless you glue the purfling in first......

Gurian sells double length material, although there is a minimum order.

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Pat

Yeah, this is what I'm after. Installing the purfling first by itself and then binding. I'm also going to tackle miters around the end wedge and I want to try installing all the purfling first and making sure it's exactly how I want it (installed with CA most likely) and then going back and putting binding on with HHG.

Thanks for the tip about Gurian. I was about to pull the trigger this morning on an order of 50 of them but with shipping of 20 bucks and the 45 for the purfling (plus buying a couple things I didn't need to hit the 50 dollar limit) I decided to hold off. I did order some long fiber individual pieces from Ebay / China to give a test. I might still buy the Gurian anyway.

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Well, there's that. . .

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Let us know how the Chinese fiber behaves!

I'm still trying to figure out how they do the shipping so cheap. I can literally order a $1 part from the other side of the world and some guy walks up my driveway and leaves it at my front door...

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Pat

I got some from AliExpress, IIRC. I've only used it for rosette rings, and found that pre-forming it to the ring shape helped to keep it from breaking. For rim purfling it should be fine.

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Well, I just got a shipping notice they are on the way. Should be here on the 20th. $8.50 for 100 black and 100 white 65" long strips. Amazing.

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