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RobF -> Giving away some "secrets" for Xmas (Dec. 27 2025 21:29:46)
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OK, in the spirit of the season I thought I'd show some "tricks" I've always done on guitars, mainly for my own benefit, but also because they're cool. At least, I think they are. If you adopt them don't expect anyone to ever notice, because they won't. Only other guitar makers maybe will because honestly only other guitar makers are anal enough about this stuff to even look for it. These aren't original with me although I don't come across either that often.
First is to stagger the purfling. Don't meet it in the middle with the binding, move it along a few inches from there. Also stagger each individual piece. On the guitar I'm showing I honestly can't find the join, I even used a jewellers loop and still couldn't find it. I might have done a scarf join, which is also another "trick" that's more commonly found, but I don't always do that. P.S. I'm refretting this guitar, I made it about six or seven years ago so that's why I can't remember, in case you were wondering.
The second is the treatment of the insert between the purfling where the sides are butted. If a piece of binding is used, then doing a pointed join instead of a butt can look pretty nifty. I was shown that in Spain, but that's not the one I want to show. Using binding material will have its grain running perpendicular to the grain of the sides. This "trick" is to take a slice of the side and use that instead of the binding wood to get a continuous grain matched center. It looks really clean and other guitar makers will either go "ooohh ahhhh" when they see it or they'll scratch your top, depending on their disposition.
Either way, you do these things for yourself, they're kind of just satisfying little crafty things to do and also, even though it's Christmas, are what they call in Hollywood "Easter eggs" for the observer to find, should they care to look.
Picture #1 - Can you find the join? I can't. It's because it isn't there. It might be found in the second picture. It's gotta be somewhere....
Picture #2 - I think the join for the w/r/w is that smudge in the middle. The black purfling would've been joined about an inch away from that. It's the only spot I could find with my loupe that's likely. But that's the area I generally do it in so it's likely there. It's also likely I scarfed these joins, which would be why they're harder to find. The idea is nobody ever looks there, they just focus on the center and go "wow".
Picture #3 - shows a smooth transition of matching grain for the insert between the sides. Just a nice touch, I like the look of this a lot. I also try to match the insert's width with the binding but different makers don't always do that. Some like to have it wider. Sometimes a single line is really nice but is actually harder to execute. For that I use a line scribing tool (I can't remember what they're called) to make the extremely narrow channel. Can't mess up the join when you do that, but it can look pretty good in the right setting. There's a purity in the simplicity.
But when I have an insert I like to follow the run of the grain and if the binding contrasts with the sides I'll generally try to match it to the binding.
At any rate, my gift to whomever chooses to use them. I don't see these things done very much but I think it makes for a nice guitar.
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