Official Luthiers Forum!

Any reason for not using tortoise binding as a back strip?
All opinions welcome.

Dave.

Here's an example, make sure you flood the centre strip with CA after joining as celluloid doesn't glue as well as wood.

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

I have used tortise binding as purflings before and it turned out great. The only thing is, if you want the color changes to show you have to keep it really thin, and it helps to back it with something light.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

Thanks Laurent and Brock.

The only difficulty I thought I might find is in sanding. I suppose the answer is to scrape where the tortoise is.

I thought I would glue the binding to a white veneer and, after joining the back, inlay it to a depth of 2 veneers' thickness.

I joined the back with the tortoise full width (.062"), scraping works much better than sanding and is lightning quick, but that's true with wood as well IMHO. Here's the rosette of the same guitar, so with a "light" spruce background. I must be in the minority and like tortoise celluloid directly over the dark mahogany (or sapele in this case).

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Laurent Brondel
West Paris, Maine - USA
http://www.laurentbrondel.com/

Merci Laurent. Très jolie, la rosace en tortue!