About time I post an update to these two builds. Nice to be back in the shop again after some time away. I am sure Jack is glad to see progress being made again.
I previously made up some wenge bindings for these two guitars. Wenge has a lot of figure when flat sawn. The quartersawn face has grain lines that run tightly parallel to one another. I want the quartersawn face to be the wider edge of the binding.
Flatsawn face:
Quartersawn face:
A fist full of wenge binding:
Because we are using osage orange purflings, these need to be bent along with the binding strips. I tightly tape the binding and purfling together so the purfling strips don't roll when bending. I then run the taped up binding and purfling through my bender:
I cut the binding and purfling channels using my laminate trimmer, which is mounted to a jig that keeps the trimmer straight. I put the Engelmann body in a carrier that allows me to level the body so the rims are 90 degrees to the table surface:
The laminate trimmer does a good job at cutting the channels, but I still use a small sanding block to clean up the channels and run a scraper around the inside corners:
I test fit the binding and purfling prior to gluing in:
I like to move quickly when gluing in the binding and purfling, so I cut miters and butt joints and pre-cut pieces of binding tape. With everything laid out, I am ready to go:
I start at the tail graft and work my way around one side of the soundboard, gluing and taping as I go. When one side is done, I repeat the process with the other side. Once the top binding and purfling are taped in, I wrap the entire body with twill tape to pull all the joints in tight:
I got the back bindings on the Engelmann body this afternoon as well as the top bindings on the red spruce body. Tomorrow I should finish up binding and will start leveling. I'll post more pix when get both bodies done.
Thanks for following along.
Ken