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im wanting to do a radial top purfling and im wondering if anyone had any opinions on some of the following woods:

super quilty sapele

lacewood

figured bubinga

most of the radial purfs ive seen so far have been of the rosewood variety. has anyone tried any of these woods? is there enough cross grain variation to make it worthwhile in a .060"(?) wide top purfling? the woods mentioned are all kind of from the same color palette and thats the tone (color, not sound) im generally going for. opinions?

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sweat the small stuff.

thanks, todd. i dont know how many times ive looked at that gallery and i didnt even think to look there for inspiration.

i dont have an expansive collection of tonewoods. actually, i dont have any tonewood, let alone enough tonewood that wood necessitate a tonewood rack (replace tonewood with gun and you have a waynes world reference). without the wood in hand its difficult to say what goes with what because, as you know, wood varies so much from piece to piece. so im left looking at pictures on line and hoping that a tonewood supplier sends me more or less what im asking for.

if i had any of said wood in hand i would gladly mock something up. stinks buying only enough wood for one guitar at a time. oh well, maybe ill order a little of each.

thanks again.

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sweat the small stuff.

i dont mean to be annoying with this post. it obviously didnt attract a lot of attention. nonetheless, i was about to order some quilted sapele for radial purfling as stated in the original post and i got to thinking about it again. quilt is found in flat sawn woods, correct? is the fact that it is flat sawn going to pose a problem when fitting pieces into the channel? quartered pieces would break easily, but im not so sure about flat sawn. what do you think? how about hiding the start and stop of pieces since the grain doesnt run vertical?

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sweat the small stuff.

alright, thanks todd. picking up headplate blanks is exactly what i was planning on doing. im just thinking about it too much i suppose. ill order monday, then we can let this thread die. ill think of something else worthless to talk about.

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sweat the small stuff.

If this is what you are talking about, coco makes a great purfling and you can find some really stripy stuff at woodworking stores. Flamed maple probably would be nice too...

Watching and learning!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Waddy, I liked it so much that I routed off a abalone inlayed box to redo it in coco...

I am confused as to what is "radial top purfling"? I am thinking that it is the rings on a rosette??? Lack of response could be because your description may be confusing to some. Just trying to help.

Tom-
My understanding is that 'radial top purfling' refers to what some of us would call 'cross grain banding' around the perimeter of the body.

The pic from Haans of the coco purfling/rosette guitar shows it pretty clearly. You do need to get wood with lots of grain lines and overall consistent color, if you want to hide the joins, as pointed out above. I tried a couple of samples with less-figured wood, and wasn't crazy about the result.

Now a question of my own:Do folks just 'crack' the radial purfling in place (like shell), or pre-bend somehow? (water, SuperSoft, heat??)
And, is the purfling glued in 'all at once' or do you use a Teflon strip, as with shell?
Cheers
John

Thanks, Todd.
Very nice looking job on that rosette and purfling, BTW. Tasty!

Cheers
John

My strips are a snug fit and about .070" tall. I use Weldon 16 and tap them in with my plastic headed fretting hammer. They just break as I pound them in and if there is a gap, I just push the piece over with a flat screwdriver. Spose if I was doing an all wood binding I'd use a different glue...
Sometimes I will cut the piece I'm using to cut strips at a diagonal and that will give me a slanted look. Make a little wedge at the butt and you can have the angle going both ways...

now everyone wants to come out and play! i appreciate all of the input and hope those with as little or less experience than i can take something from this as well.

well, here is a picture of some of the wood i was thinking about using. definitely figured, but not in the same way as say cococolo or some of the other rosewoods, etc.

id like to spend as little money as possible, but i think i might order some plan B wood. i was actually wanting to use cocobolo or possibly some amazon rosewood as the binding. in other words, dark. back and sides honduran mahogany, top is adi. ive been all over the place trying to figure out the appointments for this guitar. coco binding with coco purfs doesnt seem too cool to me, but who knows? maybe koa purfs?

john, you mentioned using some less figured wood and didnt like the results. what did you use? like i mentioned, the sapele is figured, but in a different way.

let me know what you think.

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sweat the small stuff.

Heath-
I was playing around with some figured walnut offcuts that looked quite interesting in larger pieces, but not so good as purfling. Also, there was a color variation across the board which didn't produce the 'look' I liked.

Still, I'm keeping an eye on the offcuts box for possibilities.
Todd's suggestion about headstock overlay material sounds good as well.

Cheers
John

i ordered supplies for number two this morning, so ill keep you posted on the progress and the viability of quilted sapele as radial purfling. thank you to everyone for their input here.

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sweat the small stuff.