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Got a question. Been noodling about binding my fretboard with the same large leaf maple burl I used on the rosette, end graft and neck heel. My concerns are first the regular bindings are figured maple ; and second , my burl striips would only be about 6" long. I don't mind the frequent joints. I just don't want the joints opening up over time.

I could always do maple, but I thought this would be more unique.

Thoughts?

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

I don't think all those joints would look that good but that is just me. Are you going to put abalone purfing on it too?

everyone has different style. that being said, not necessarily my cup of tea, but i think you could make it look cool. do you have any pictures of the material you are thinking of using? since there are other appointments of the same material, it might not look out of place. i think if you try and hide the joints, it will just make things look more obvious. maybe you could do breaks at specific intervals? perhaps you could make joints where you would install side fret markers and use a full binding height marker so that it looks like the joints are there on purpose. does that make sense? as to the joints opening up over time, i cant comment on.

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sweat the small stuff.

Chris, I hadn't thought of putting ab purfling on the fretboard. I was just thinking about binding the fretboard with the burl. I never seen it done, so I wasn't sure how it would look. I thought it might look very nice, but I'm hesitant because my pieces will be so short. Heath's ideas are interesting with respect to breaking up the joints, but I think I'll just skip the binding.

Thanks for the feedback.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

I like it. Although the ablam strips are only about .040" to .050" and the binding is .040" with .020" of Black laminated to it and .010" B/ .020" W on the other side of the ablam. This might give you some ideas.