Having settled on a design, Mark and I considered three options for the soundport binding:
1. No binding, but a multi-laminate support underneath which would create inner border like this:
2. Ebony binding with white and black purfling around it like this:
3. Making all of the mock-up's white area Ebony, so that the soundports would appear in one big Ebony inlay. The whole thing would then have white-black border.
Going in, my preference was for option 2 because unbound soundports (option 1) have always looked unfinished to me. Mark floated option 3 as something else for me to consider--not as something recommend, just another option available which I hadn't thought of. I liked the symmetry with the arm bevel that option 3 would provide, but I felt that that much Ebony would be too heavy a look. I want the Cocobolo of the sides to separate each port.
After some discussion, I ended up going with a conflation of options 1 and 2: the ports ports will be bound in Ebony and then have a double purfling of white and black as well as having matching laminate layers of white and black underneath. In this way, the soundport binding will be just like the edge binding. It will have the same pufling pattern, and also the same repetition of that pattern at a 90 degree difference--on the edge binding that 90 degrees is between the soundboard or back and the sides; here it is between the sides and the interior.
I hope that makes sense? The pictures above convey it clearer, I think.
Mark has roughed out a sample of the binding:
The image quality isn't as high, but you can still make out the general idea: Ebony binding bordered by a thin layer of white and a perimeter layer of black. In the actual ports, the binding will not be this thick lest it look unbalanced and disproportinate. And this is not the final placement (for that see the mock-up). But it does give a sense of how the final soundport will appear. Most importantly, it gave Mark a head's up for some things going forward with the final version.
Obviously this is more complex a design than your standard oval port--though, binding aside, it is still simpler than the port Mark executed on his lovely
Unlimited Series No.2 Olivewood guitar. I'll let Mark's own words portray the particular challenges present here:
"There are two challenges I have setting this up: first is the proximity of this long series of ports to the foot of the transverse brace. You see the transverse brace bears a lot of weight from the fretboard pushing down on it. This brace also holds the upper bouts from deforming . The top isn’t much help with this. So I need to keep the Cocobolo bars that separate the ports wide, say 5/16ths or a little more to maintain the side strength. The other issue is just how tight a radius I can bend the maple purfling. The maple went easier than expected on these trial ones so I’m expecting I can push that smaller."
I think Mark is up to conquering these challenges, don't you?
