Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi guys,

i am looking into what kind of services i can offer that will help me stand out the crowd in the uk and as such i am interested to hear your opinions on what kind of products you would like to see from your suppliers.
in particular i want to start manufacturing and ordering bindings and purflings and could realy use you opinions on the matter.
in my own use i used to use either purfling that was ready glued to binding strips or standard black white black fiber purflings.
but there is a huge lack of quality ready made binding/purfling strips out there and the coices seem to be black/white/black or nothing.
recently i have been using homemade wooden purflings but they are a real pain to bend paralel with the ribs the only way i have found to do this neatly is to glue them to the binding strip before bending as you cant bend a thin peice of wood on its side unless you do this,

in short i know everyone has diferent ways of working so i would like to know how attach your purfling and what products you would like to see.

for example i intend to start making a huge range of binding strips with real wood purflings attached for example you could have zirocote bindings with 0.6mm mahogany/ebony/mahony or m,ebony bindings with bloodwood/ebony attached whatever you would like.
also i would make up purflings with matching scheems to be inlayed around the soundhole/top and back etc

would you prefer to see this kind binding strip or would you like a wide range of 0.6mm stringing instead to make your own purflings(in my experience this is very fiddly and time consuming) or a combo of both.

What ever the case i will still offer plain binding strips aswell.

i want to offer as wide a range as possable so your comments will be taken on board with thanks.

also i will be making orders from gurian and karin rost so you will be able order standard traditional purflings etc without having to make a bulk purchase.

i am also very interested in giving people a choice that they have never had before and i am looking into having figured wood rosette's lazer cut.
These would be between 1 and 1.5mm and made in a number of widths and with the same woods that the binding strips come in so people can mix and match with purfling and binding scheems..
is this something that would be of interest or do you prefer to make your own.

so in summary i want to offer a very wide range bandings and purflings and would love to know what you guys would like to see.
and i am thinking of having wooden rosette;s cut for steel string and would like if this is something that would be popular.

thanks in advance for your comments,

Joel.

I'm not sure it would be cost effective for me to buy from the UK, but I am always looking for something different than is offered at the "big" supply houses and different than what everybody else is doing.

I dont know that this helps you much, but all I can say is make something different, put a price on it that is reasonable and no doubt it will sell.

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Reguards,

Ken H

What Ken said.

Be different.

Anyone that is serious already buys from Gurian(the minimum is low enough that its not an issue) or makes their own(or both). If you want to carve out your own slice of the pie, you'll need to be different. It'll be very hard to be better, and being overseas, more inexpensive to the majority of your target clientel is unlikely.

I'd say first and foremost, have your inlays made from natural wood veneers. There is lots of stuff out there and virtually all that I've seen look like dyed colors. I second the idea of having matching patterns in rosette, side purfling/binding, and top/back purfling strips. Also some strips in the same patterns deep enough to use as back or peghead join inlays. This would give the widest choices as to how to use the material.

I am all for wood bindings too; I have some fibre/mahog purfling I'm using up for this build, then I'm switching to wood binding and purfling such as pear, sycamore, mahogany, rosewood...I'm yet to find a UK supplier who can sell me such stuff.

I completely agree with some of the advice here, be different, natural wood, etc.

But most of all it would be great to find a supplier of natural wood purflings that did NOT contain any stinkin bright white laminations........

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Thanks for the reply folks,

obviously my main market is uk and europe,
but at least 20% of my market is in the states at present.
if i can find a decent shipping method for small items then it may be more viable for you guys in the states.

ok so the plan is to specialise in exotic wood binding/purflings and give people a wide range to choose from.
second i would offer a service where people can pick the own combinations ala gurian.

the fact is you can get black white black purflings anywhere so i wont wast my time making up to many of these unless demand requires it.

regarding rosettes what would you guys like to see what thicknesses (i notice quite wide rosettes seem to be in vogue right now)etc.
also what species of wood would like to see.
at the moment m,ebony, malaysian blackwood, snakewood, bubinga, and satinwood seem to be my best sellers is there anything that you would really like to see in both bindings and rosettes.


Thanks again for the input guys this is really inportant market research for me.

joel

by the way sam,
i can custom cut most bindings for you in any wood and i will be set up for laminating purflings in about six weeks.
but i do have a large amount of real wood stringing available.

just drop me an email through the site or a p.m if you need anything.

Joel.