The binding and purfling went in quite neatly. It’s a simple scheme but I think it will look fine on the finished instrument. You can judge for yourself from the pictures. The apparent staining of the wood in some places is where I have brushed on some shellac to stop the white maple picking up dirt or, worse, turning an orange colour from contact with the cocobolo. It will disappear when the next coat of shellac goes on.
The next tasks are to prepare a fingerboard and make a bridge.
The binding is made from sawn veneers of ebony and maple. The photograph below shows a true edge being planed using a shooting board before using the bandsaw to slice off a narrow strip.
Here, a border of maple is being glued to the ebony in a shop-made clamping device.
Below is a strip of the finished binding, bent and ready to be glued into the ledge already routed on the guitar.
One question to be resolved is what wood to use for the bindings of this guitar – the strips around the edges of the soundboard and back that frame the instrument visually and protect the vulnerable corners. As I mentioned when I talked about rosettes a few weeks ago, I prefer bold and straightforward (as opposed to fine and detailed) when it comes to how a guitar looks. For this instrument either the strong black of ebony or the light creamy colour of holly seemed possibilities (see pictures below) .
I couldn’t make up my mind which would look better and only reached a decision by asking the person whom I was making it for. He had no doubt that he preferred the ebony. Pictures of the guitar with the binding and purfling in place to follow.
Finely Strung 