Lets start by looking at the result of the last session. After peeling away all the tape from the mummified back of the guitar, it looks like this:

Ivoroid back binding

I think it came out nicely, overall. Once the top binding has been done, all the glue residue will be removed with a cabinet scraper. At that stage I’ll also scrape the bindings flush with the body.

But first, more of the same to be done on the top! I already routed the two channels which are needed for this part of the job, using the same Festool router we used for the back. It turned out that the purfling channel was a bit to shallow so I adjusted this first.

Next stage: bending the purfling strips. These small strips of laminated mosaic need to be bent to the shape of the guitar before installing them, so on to the bending iron they went. Of course, these are much easier to bend than the sides of a guitar so it was done in a matter of minutes:

Bent purfling strips

On to installing the binding and purfling. This is a little more challenging than doing just binding alone, because both strips made of different material have to be glued in tight at the same time. This takes practice, steady hand and lots of painters tape:

Top binding and purfling installed

A preview of the result I’m aiming for:

Preview of the finished top

Next session: shaping the bridge. Also, Ive decided I want to bind the fret board (like on this D-42). This will give me the necessary width of the finger board because at the moment the string spacing is a tad on the small side, which the binding will fix.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 5th, 2009 at 10:16 am and is filed under Building procedures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.