This past Sunday, we worked exclusively on the binding and purfling. Our first step was to route out the rabbit on the front and back for the binding. The second step was a rabbit on the inside of the rabbit for the binding on the front side which is for the purfling (less deep). I got to try the Festool trim router which is one of the only trim routers with a micro adjust which is great for the adjustment to get binding depth correct. I think I’m going to save up for this and get this for my next guitar.
The next step was to do a very minor trim on the binding. The binding consists of a very small piece (white in my case) glued to a thicker piece (black). The white needed to be smoothed out to be flushed with the black piece.
It took all 3 of use to do the work of glueing the binding and purfling on both the guitars. It was kind of stressful because the purfling was prone to tangling. The clamp was painters/blue tape. Here is a shot of my teacher Eli and the glued up body.
Eli, generously, allowed me to get a new piece of figured wood for the headstock. I get another try at that so that is part of my homework. We also need to ream out the strap mount on the bottom of the guitar and the hardware holes on the headstock.
UPDATE: After 2 days, I took the tape off. I think we may have used too much glue (it was very toxic smelling and I used a respirator when using it – apparently it’s model making glue) as the glue under the tape was not quite dry. Also, I had a piece of the veneer on the side near the bottom come off when removing the tape. I repaired it but it looks like a repair so that’s a bit of a bummer. I’m going to let the guitar set for a day or two to see if the glue dries so that I can scrape the binding/purfling.
On the headstock, I prepared it and glued it up. I’m not sure the glue up was a great job. I may have to do some filling on it. I’ll know later when I remove the clamps. The figure looks great so I’m hopeful for this to turn out.
