Early Arrival . . .
Phil and I met on the garden seat outside the gallery and bookbinders at the other end of the building – our normal keeper of the keys was late this morning so we could not get in via our regular rafter route. He was feeling quite pleased with himself as the guy he is staying with gave him a Bosch router and he spent a few minutes cleaning it up once we got inside the workshop. It looks like it will be perfect for guitar building. My first job was to continue the aggressive sanding of the sides to get them level – which in my case only involved getting a couple of dips out near both waists. We could also see that Richard had been doing some repair work on a beautiful baby Taylor guitar.
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| Phil's new routing machine . . . |
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| Continuing sanding with 80 grit |
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| Baby Taylor under repair |
Binding Day . . .
Today is binding day for all of us. Apart from the first hour of the first day of this course, today is the only time that we all did the same thing at the same time – and Richard said this was the first time this had happened in his courses. And binding should really be read as routing as that task took us most of the day. We seriously annoyed the bloke upstairs with the noise as all three of us were routing on the same day – he came down using very bad words saying, "You are doing my !*$%ing head in"! It is very pleasing to see that neighbourly relations are a universal international constant – and so much for the myth of British reserve that we always hear about!
Those very few forlorn regular readers of this blog will already know what the binding is and what it does. For all the normal people, the binding is the decorative edge right around the guitar. Some manufacturers do not have bindings but the guitars can look a little plain – and they do protect edges of the guitar from knocks and bangs and do play a role in helping end grain tops and bottoms from splitting.
Bindings can be made of nearly anything and most mass produced guitars (even very good name ones) use plastic binding as the standard and wood bindings are an ‘option’. We are all using wood for our bindings – Phil has gone for pear (yes – as in the fruit) and Patrick and I are using Indian Rosewood (the same as our back and sides – but at least part of it will be on the opposite grain). And all this formed the subject of today's technical chat.
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Binding and purfling sections
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| Binding explained |
Routing the Back . . .
We all set up our guitars in a cradle so they are perfectly level and they can be slid around the routing table – a lot. The most exacting part of binding involves getting the routed channel precisely accurate both in terms of width AND constant depth. The binding channels are cut down in stages to the correct depth – but because of the juxtaposition of the routing blade and guide, the whole thing needs to be kept ‘vertical’ to the constantly changing tangent of the curve so as to achieve a constant depth. Because the router is fixed to a stand it means the guitar is ‘flailed’ around the table to maintain this constant cutting angle.
The logical starting point was the back of the guitars – and we all used the router in turn to save changing bits and setting it up again. It was quite efficient as we all had other jobs to do when not actually routing – but it did mean there was a lot of noise and dust. It was also quite alarming to see the kerfing become visible in the channel – we have effectively removed all of the Indian Rosewood right around the edge. And even more alarming was the fact that you could see daylight from inside the guitar through some of the gaps in the kerfing and where the bracing has come through!
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| Leveling the guitar |
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| Jeez - she looks alright! |
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| The unforgiving router |
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| Work in progress |
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| Looking very neat at the heel |
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| Now where have I seen these before? |
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| Hello . . . is anyone out there? |
The Binding . . .
Some may recall that I left my Indian Rosewood bindings ‘cooking’ in the bending machine over the weekend – so it was time to take them out. Everything seems to have gone to plan apart from one little bit of the Maple laminate delaminating in one place – but Dr Richard will do his magic on that a little later.
Beautifully bent purflings
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| They blend in very well |
The Purfling . . .It was time for me to make some decisions about my purfling and then to make it. After some consideration and referring to a few books over the weekend, I have decided to ‘mirror’ the outer ring of my rosette. This meant cutting some strips of dyed black veneer and Maple veneer – which is the easy part. The harder part for me glueing and clamping them down . . . another two pairs of hands would have been very useful!
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| Cut four lengths of veneer . . . |
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| and glue it down very well |
Routing the Front . . .
The next job involved routing the top – which in this case needs a channel for the binding and a smaller channel for the purfling (see diagram above). Apart from being a little more nerve-wracking (this is the front of the guitar after all!), routing the front is virtually identical to doing the back . . . including flailing the thing around on the routing table.
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| The first pass |
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| The second pass is enough . . . for now |
On with the Binding . . .
The next task for us all involved sticking the binding onto the back of the guitar – which uses a lot of masking and binding tape. The first step is to very carefully stick one half of the binding to the guitar and mark it to length – precisely . . . and then take all the tape off and cut it slightly over length by ‘nibbling’ at it using the snippers and finally ‘rolling’ the excess off in small slivers using a wide chisel. The other half is then taped to the other side and marked to length and cut slightly over length. Next two tail end pieces are put together and briefly touched against the vertical sander so as to get a ‘perfect’ fit . . . in theory.
Once all that is done, you paint some very slightly watered down Titebond glue (to extend the drying time slightly) and paint around one channel, one side of the maple strip and the inside of the binding – ‘working swiftly’ as Richard often says. The binding and maple strip is then firmly attached to the base with binding tape – lining up exactly with the middle of the guitar. Believe it or not, taping technique is very important – you need to attach one side and then stretch the tape as much as possible ‘around the corner’ and then go down onto the other surface in one swift movement. You go all the way along the length of the job pulling down from the top – and then go back again pulling up from the bottom. The waist and upper bout of the guitar are especially important due to the tightness of the curves.
The other side of the back binding is then attached using the same method – although the top section needs to be snipped to length and then filed down to get a perfect match.
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| Getting instructions on back binding |
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| Binding taped into place |
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| Half done |
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| Special mixture of Titebond and water |
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| Do you like my new finish? |
The Others . . .
A Good Story . . .
Richard is a very well known and respected luthier who mostly builds guitars to order – but he occasionally builds one ‘on spec’. We were all very excited for him when a woman ‘walked in off the street’ and bought one. She originally came in to have her 1974 Guild set up but fell in love with Richard’s guitar when she played it. For those interested, take a look at some of the beautiful instruments that Richard makes at www.osborneguitars.co.uk It is a given that we share successes and 'learning opportunities' . . . so we thought the walls of the Lewes Arms might be in need of propping up at lunchtime!
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The happy customer
Sharing a moment in the sun!
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