wood bindings

[Dan of SC]

I like to use all wood on my guitars, including bindings. Let the factories use plastic. My favorite guitar so far is an OM size with Adirondack Spruce top and repurposed Honduran mahogany back, sides and neck. I used curly maple binding. I like the way it looks on the back but on the top it looks unbound, due to maple and spruce being almost the same color. I'm doing another one now with rosewood fingerboard and bridge and I would like to have a very thin piece of rosewood binding against the spruce, then the curly maple binding at full size. All the wood binding I get from StewMac is .080" thick. I would like for the rosewood to be about .020" to .040" thick. Anyone got any ideas as to how I might accomplish this? Thanks Danny Gray

[murrmac123]

Have you thought about using dyed poplar veneer ? You can buy it dyed black, .023" thick.

[JonWint]

Look at:

http://www.lmii.com/products/mostly-...-purfling-trim

[Tom West]

How about herringbone purfling? Works nicely with curly maple.
Tom

[WaddyT]

Insert the colored material as Purflings instead of bindings at a depth of about .060". Then you can use whatever you want. The process involves routing or hand cutting a purfling ledge inside the binding ledge.


Purfling installed


Binding installed

[TEK]

Dan,
LMII sells thin strips of Rosewood just for that. You can find them under the bindings and purflings tab, then wood strips for purfling tab. They are .024" thick by .250" or .100" tall. They also have them in bloodwood and maple. They are thin enough that they don't have to be pre bent to install.
I have done a couple of guitars with these and it works great.

Another thing I have done is to take regular binding and cut them in half ,height wise, for a little thicker purfling. These can be a little trickier to bend because of the thickness. I use a blanket and a form to bend them and it has worked fine.
Travis

[charles Tauber]

Another option is to make your own purfling by cutting the veneer of your choice. Local hardwood suppliers often sell wood veneer in different species, sometimes dyed in various colors. A straight-edge and a sharp knife makes quick work of it.

Multiple strips can be used side-by-side to obtain whatever purfling face width you wish, rather than try to pre-bend wider, shallower pieces.

[Ned Milburn]

You can make a thickness sanding attachment for a standard belt sander. I take my purflings to as thin as .5mm

You may wish to sub a different wood rather than EIR. As you likely know, resin color runs. At half a mm you'll not notice any slight differentiation to EIR color.

[Dan of SC]

Thanks to JonWint for this link. Just what the doctor ordered!