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When I try to use fiber in a purfling build up, I have trouble bending it. It crinkles at sharper radii. Any thoughts on what I'm doing wrong? Does anybody make a true white maple veneer?


Mike

I just hold mine in steam from a boiling kettle and it goes like wet spaghetti, then sets again in a minute after removal.
This soundport binding tight enough?
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=40344&p=530515&hilit=+soundport#p530515
My last batch BWB came from China (ebay) and looks like genuine maple in the centre. You can see the flecking in it.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

If you are not opposed to making your own you might want to check this thread out.

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=42804


I have a boatload of strips I bought from the big suppliers and didn't like any of them so I decided to make my own. I made up enough strips for at least 10 guitars and the only thing I have not done as of yet is to dye some of them black but when I need them I plan on giving it a try.

Bob

I made some purpleheart binding the other day. Still haven't bent it yet. Just haven't gotten to it yet. Got grand kids this afternoon so I probably won't get at it till they go home.


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My point, which may have been missed, is when I build up a purfling stack (glue and all) where fiber is used, once I get to the bending stage, the fiber (depending on thickness) tends to crinkle are sharper radii.

Mike,
I don't think your point was missed at all.






I think you have 2 options, Steam them or trash them and make your own.

I didn't like them for the same reason you said, they seem to break really easily because they are not really wood... They are compressed fiber (what ever that is). I also tried them on a test piece and tried to sand and finish them and all of them seemed to have fuzzy edges and not crisp lines. That is why I opted to just make my own out of real wood.

Maybe someone else knows of a supplier that has a better product but the 2 suppliers I bought them from had the crappy fiber stuff.

Bob

For tight radii -- I have bent fibre purfling with success using a hot pipe. I use the smallest hardware store variety cast iron pipe that I heat with a cheap soldering iron.

I am with a bunch of you and prefer making my own B/W - Ebony/Maple veneer strips. If you use highly figured maple veneer the figure actually shine through with standard 0.022" thick veneer.

I wondered about that. I actually bought a bundle of some really beautiful book matched Figured Euro Ash veneer and was going to try it for perfling but decided on just using some plane flatsawn Maple of which I have a big stack of 4/4 boards. I will have to try that Euro Ash on something, its a bit brittle but it seemed to bend easy enough on the pipe.

Bob, sycamore veneer is also another nice substitute for maple veneer. I looked for some pictures that show the figure from 0.022" veneer popping under a nitro finish...this is the best that I could find (this particular guitar uses maple veneer that is quarter sawn on edge). You can kind of see it if you look around the edge of the lower bout.

I've seen several guitars that have dead quartered curly maple purflings that almost look like some kind of abalone under finish. Here is an example of one of Bruce Sexauer's guitars with beautiful maple purfling. Bruce is probably my favorite all around acoustic builder, and he builds an excellent sounding guitar at that.

Maple purfling with Amazon RW binding on a Euro-Pear body by Bruce Sexauer...

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Brad

Here's some wide Sycamore purfling.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Here is some Black/Holly/Black purfling that I made from veneer, it is pretty close to white.

To veer this thread back to the topic, Those of you that posted pic's of your perfling what are you using for the black?

The thread title was Fiber Issues so are you using fiber for your black? I am not the OP but have an interest in it because I have a lot of black fiber from Stew Mack and from LMI and I didn't like either one because they seem to crack really easily and the worst part I didn't like is they seem to fuzz up when you try to sand them. I did a few tests on scrap wood and even if I put sealed them with shellac and tried to sand them the just looked fuzzy and didn't have a nice crisp line even after I put some finish on them.

As I said in one of my posts above I decided to make my own out of Maple. The perfling I was doing was Maple/Walnut/Maple and it turned out great but at some point I know I will want to do black. I am planning on trying to dye some of the Maple but have not tried it as of yet.

If you are not using fiber are you dying yours black and if so, how are you doing it?

Thanks,
Bob

Hey Bob,

Some veneer suppliers have pre dyed black veneer that you can buy. This is what I have been using and works fine.

-Rob

I think I am going back to wood veneers only. I have not seen the fuzzy edge thing, and I think that is because I saturated the fiber (once installed) with thin CA. Plus, I use a scraper. But I have seen a "flattening out" of the fiber line (tends to be worse if sanded). And this may be related to the fuzz thing. By "flattening", I mean that the resulting purfling line appears wider than the thickness of the actual fiber insert. And, I believe others have mentioned this.

Mike,
That may be what I am talking about, I only tried a couple of samples by gluing up a piece of my binding and perfling with a another piece of spruce to simulate the binding/perfling/top and it just didn't seem to get a good crisp edge like I was looking for. That was when I bought all new from LMI (the first I got was Stew Mack) but that did about the same thing.

I bought some maple and some Curly Euro Ash veneer but the thickness wasn't what I wanted so I decided to just figure out how to make my own so I won't be reliant on trying to find veneer or having the expense. The little Dremel Table Saw I made (in the link I posted above) works really well and along with a scraper I can get very accurate strips within .002". And the best thing about making your own is you can use any wood you want.

So if you are not opposed to making them yourself you may want to look into something like the saw I built or maybe a little Proxon hobby saw.

Cheers,
Bob

Waddy, that wide sycamore purf is really sweet!

" I have not seen the fuzzy edge thing, and I think that is because I saturated the fiber (once installed) with thin CA."

As a point of speculation, fiber being essentially "paper", I wonder how colored craft paper saturated in CA would work for purfling? has anyone tried it?

Waddy, leftyprs, could you look at this and offer an opinion? viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=43612&p=577155#p577155

(curly maple or curly sycamore?)

Mike