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RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Nice work brother…
I just finished up a headstock in Maple. The end of the block I used, for the whole neck actually, had a lot of figure so I split it into 1/8” sheets and bookmatched a set with a high rag content fiber insert. Then I glued it to the headstock with 2 layers of 6oz/yd carbon fiber.
The whole neck assembly was blocked up then spit with a wedged center piece 1/2” thick at the heal and 1/4 at at the scarf with a band saw for a minimum kerf to preserve the grain continuity, then the angled pieces were jigged up the run through the planer cause. Then the whole neck was glued back together again with the 2 layers of 6oz CF for two full depth webs. Think I-beam.
The headstock kerfed piece was treated the same before being attached to the neck only the angle was reversed and more external to match the machine head cutouts. I missed it by almost 1/6 but most wouldn’t ever notice.
Just a few good soaks of linseed oil and a couple wipes of shellac.
The fotos should make this more clear.
Had the headstock all done the fretboard glued on and then I ass-jacked the nut slot .100” too wide. Hubris is my vice and the sickening feeling I felt was as if my nuts were in one… I’ll either shape up a fancy nut and blame the width on intonation or I’ll do what I should and remove the whole fretboard and glue on another.
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Posts: 2774
Joined: Jan. 30 2007
From: London (the South of it), England
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Nice idea. lovely work fellows.
I like seeing threads like this. If only I had some material to contribute. Ive decided to start work on my number 3..but as the workshop is unusable in the colder months I'm gearing up to some stuff I can do in the warm of the house. Rosette making being the obvious choice. perhaps i'll get into some purfling too. If so i'll be sure to post.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Stripping some bindings. Building two 650 classicals spruce with maple ribs and spruce with camphor ribs hickory pseudo-tentolones for the top and back kerfed walnut for the bottom linings.
I build up the bindings as shown then strip off in a fine kerf band saw. I plane the one side clean before I cut it off cause and use that side against the top plate and let the other side remain rough and a touch proud of the rib face then scraped smooth after they are glued up. Had a ****-ton of snow to blow and shovel and roof rake last couple weeks, taking a lazy day :)
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Thanks both for sharing your work.
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana I made some arrow patterned rosette lines from a laminated block of cherry wood and coloured veneer.
Is the arrow pattern a reference to Torres? I saw that he used it on a few guitars, like this one. Or does it pre-date Torres? (Felipe V Condes have similar arrows on my favourite rosettes of theirs, but I won't post that here!)
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Posts: 3463
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to orsonw)
Five minutes of Googling turned up some very elaborate arrow marquetry on an 1840s Martin. It’s the last one on the linked page. The marquetry is said to have been imported from Europe.
Torres may have apprenticed with Jose Pernas by 1842. However the elaboration of the Martin piece and its importation from Europe, suggests that arrows on guitars were already in use by the time Torres started making guitars.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
isnt that japanese style?
by the way looks great
last week i saw a rosete with squares (only squares) and just some lines around like yours but not with arrow shape, it looked great , simple and beautiful
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to Ricardo)
Speaking of Samurai, or rather Kung Fu, I thought I saw a blurb that Luthier repair ninja Frank Ford had passed away...
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
This is what I did with the purfling. A traditional pattern rosette. I consider a traditional rosette ( for a flamenco guitar) to have a a few consistent design elements. A center motif that would usually be a mosaic tile, some colored veneer lines as borders to the mosaic tile, then most likely a black field. The outside borders against the wood of the top would have either a simple veneer line border or a decorative border of some kind, like this ‘arrow’ pattern.
The Torres rosette Orson posted above has a similar motif, I’d probably class that one as a variation on ‘wheat staff’ motif. That’s created by taking the arrow motif and when you glue it together you slide the diagonal slashes out of arrow alignment to get a pop pattern that flips from one side to the other in a staggered fashion. The wheat staff seems very popular the last 15 or so years in a redux trend for Torres motifs. I don’t make the wheat staff variations because I see too many people doing it now. It’s beautiful and classic, but it’s trendy now and I’m just not into it. It’s difficult technically to do it at a level that Torres utilized it, so as a measure of one’s expertise it’s a good test. If you see someone doing at that level, they are good.
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RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
The Torres rosette Orson posted above has a similar motif, I’d probably class that one as a variation on ‘wheat staff’ motif.
Thanks for the clarification. I enjoy the visual rhythm/dynamic in your arrow pattern, sometimes two black arrows then alternating coloured to black then two coloured etc..
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
You know at first I didn’t care for the color combo, had a chance to pull it up on the big desktop screen rather than my phone and she had an entirely different dynamic. Also looked less orange and more red on the big screen.
Just imagining trying to manipulate those small pieces makes my hands shake ;)
To be honest I try to make do with what I have around the shop etc and every time I go online and make a shopping cart full of suitable veneers I get a little overwhelmed. Just some weird **** in my head…
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Ok, kinda part of Stu’s rosette thread but felt it fit better here, my first attempt at perfling rope in processe laying on the WRC top sets hey will be going into.
Just toying around with some scrap I had laying around, some poplar and card stock. Glued the blue to the poplar in stacks of five with TB and then clamped as a stack, went and sanded for an hour, cane back and glued those pieces in staggered stacks of four, sanded other project, then glued the stacked blocks, etc.
Spent this morning stripping out some more poplar for my fan tile project, split a log I have kept in the shop for three years for back plate sets, snapped a bandsaw blade and drives it was time for lunch… Gonna hit it hard onece I put this iDevice down ;)
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to johnguitar)
However, given the example of Giovanni Tessler from 1618 of zigzag made in the same way, I am sure that there will be earlier examples. As always Richard, nothing new under the sun.
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RE: Line work, purfling details exhibit (in reply to estebanana)
Had a moment between guitars, couple other paying wood projects ( laughs at irony still breathing ) to saw up my angled poplar/blue fiber perfling stack. Laugh with me, just now noticed that you started with a long rectangle then cut at a diagonal. A lot easier to glue up that way, but what about sawing off that angled slice?
I glued some scrap to both the end grain edges of my stack to stabilize it for sawing and various handling then ripped slices on the band saw. .060” was as thin as I dared but thought if I stabilized the edge grain with glue I could get about .75mm.
Glued up a wheat and an arrow stack last night. The wheat I used a 1/4mm fiber element between hoping it will be string enough to bend without breaking, used TB cut with 25% water. For the arrow I matched the points accordingly and glued the .010” fiber to one outside surface only thinking it can be the inside of the rosette curve and all add the outside layer as I glue them into the top. Hopeing to join two WRC tops today if all goes according to plan so I can stuff them tomorrow.
I always get jacked up doing something new, this is my first diagonal perfling go-around in case you couldn’t tell, hope I don’t get bucked off and stomped…
HR 
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
Ya, I poped on over to look at John’s line work, makes mine look like a cartoon :/ Baby steps…
I glued my diagonal work, a strip of simple wheat and chevron, with TB and water and it’s taking days to dry fully, which is fine of course but I’m not the most patient man.
There was a drop off scrap piece of my diagonal on the ground next to the band saw, thought about it a moment, about 1.4mm thick, glued it up with the blue fiber on each face with some thick CA just for kicks. Thought about it some more and tacked some of my extra 1mm veneer to each side on one edge, then ran off 1.5mm strips on the band saw with a simple zero relief plate of lexan on the band saw. The saw kerf is just under .75mm so I can get about 10 strips per inch if all goes well.
I’m torn between just using CA and not having all the swelling etc of waterborn glued but a little less flexible vs. just stinking with the TB. I don’t use HHG as a rule, I use the Frank Ford quicky version when I have a real need, as in flooding a tile or perfling strip to let it swell up in a groove.
Warmed up to zero F this morning, and of course it snowed and had to snow blow for a couple hours, miggt just make it a self care Sunday and chill in the house…
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
RE: Line work, purfling details exhi... (in reply to ernandez R)
I think I’ve posted a picture similar to this before, from a guitar I made a few years ago. It’s missing a step in how the purfling strip is made but shows the basics. The strip is thicknessed to about 1mm, which is really just an aesthetic choice between fine or bold, there’s no right or wrong to it, in my feeling.
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RE: Line work, purfling details exhi... (in reply to RobF)
Thanx for sharing that Rob, I like how dynamic it becomes.
Getting the balance with all the elements in one place is the challenge, I’m getting a grip on the physical process, between poor eyesight and shaking hands ;). I need to come to terms with a few asthetic elements I’m fighting with in my marquetry triangles, means I need to make a few more variations off those three logs I’ve made so far. I dug out some scrap AYC tonight and squared up a few blocks to make into log and perfling veneers thinking I might go that way for the color. Did I already type that upthread? Ha good thing the mind is the first thing to go ;)
I see Steven has posted on the instagram some in process shellac of the rosettes he started this thread with, guessing he is in the home stretch and too busy to share with us ;)
I might be done with posting on instagram, they just kept feeding me a lot of **** I don’t want to see, figure there are hundreds of cool Spanish guitars being built but all I ever see are stupid poodle memes and large breasted crotch shots. I f’n hate poodles ;)
HR
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I prefer my flamenco guitar spicy, doesn't have to be fast, should have some meat on the bones, can be raw or well done, as long as it doesn't sound like it's turning green on an elevator floor.
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