Official Luthiers Forum!

Lately I've been monkeying around with stains and am starting to like some of the results. If any of you kind folks have tricks you use to help keep white purfling strips white I'd be keen to read about them.

Thanks!

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George :-)

Thanks, Todd. The purfling strips are wood and already in place. I never thought of using epoxy. Do you just carefully paint the epoxy along the strip of purfling? If so, is it best to thin the epoxy a bit, so it is similar to the consistency of paint?

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George :-)

Hey Todd (or others), any thoughts on taping binding when using shellac? I have mostly been doing lacquer but with this recent mandolin build decided to go for alcohol-vehicle stains to the wood followed by a shellac seal coat. Will probably shoot build coats of shellac on the top, then stains and more shellac followed by FP seal. Lacquer to the sides/back.

However, all those involve alcohol and it seems to be a solvent for the adhesive on the usual auto-trade pinstripe tapes (pea green ones) I use as well as all the other tapes in the shop . I have already sealed the nitro binding with shellac and test of the tape where it is on plastics seem to indicate it will not weep or wick the alcohol any more than usual. But I worry anyway. Any experience with this?

George, sorry if I'm hijacking your thread but I thought it was relevant to the heading. I can always go to a new thread if you prefer.

Alan D.

No worries, Alan. I'm always interested in learning what others are doing and the processes they employ.

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George :-)

Thanks again. I'll give it a try.

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George :-)

Thanks Todd, I too will be spraying so I'm guessing that there will be little alcohol seeping under the tape edge. I used to just scrape but find that the tape helps save some time. There is always some amount of stain that gets under it so I first start with shellac on the binding and then the tape. So when it is scraping time it goes a lot faster and easier. That is with plastic binding. With wood the alcohol will seep into the wood and release the tape, I tested this. So for wood I think you have the right trick with the epoxy. I'm wondering about lacquer as well since it isn't alcohol soluble. That would be easier to paint on with a short bristle square cut art brush like I do with the shellac. In another thread by the bye there was talk of lacquer pens from the auto-body paint stores that would also work well for this.

Alan D.