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So where can we get cheap bwb strips? At the price LMI/Stewmac charge them you could have hundreds of dollars into them and you still don't have enough...

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I burned through like half a dozen purflings, just on one guitar... top, back, side, trims, rosettes, it really adds up. I don't mind paying more if I can get a better price per unit... but I do not know how good Gurian's prices are despite their high minimum order.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Great post, Steve... I've been doing the radial purfs a lot... I kinda feel like I'm in a rut with that too now. Anyway... I do think that a radial purf that has a lot of variegation and works well with the over-all vibe of the guitar is a really nice choice. Also, I think it is something that adds to the look of the instrument from 10 or 20 feet away. So much of what we work so hard to perfect regarding aesthetics requires a much closer look.

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

This stuff looks inexpensive, Tai, and shipping from China should be reasonable. http://www.ebay.com/itm/50STRIP-LUTHIER ... 19e0b7f273 Just remember - you can't have both good and cheap in the same product. You have to choose which one you want the most!

Alex

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"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

Bob, thanks for the pic.
From here in Texas, those purfs look like pale abalone. It's a nice look.
What do you have going on there on the sides?

Thanks again guys,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Thanks, Steve... I forgot to mention... the purf is spalted sycamore. The b/s are Anigre... The top is some Redwood that is WAY older than me!

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

Steve, Don't change, I hate change, plus I love your guitars, you know you are one of my favourite builders, and along with Joshua French and Ron Wisdom are probably my oldest and dearest friends her at the OLF, ten years now isn't it! I just have a small stroke, every time I see pearl or abalone on a guitar, like CA, and sitka just something I could never use. Mind you that's probably because I have no idea how to use them properly, or with any degree of style. I suppose it's the British thing where we don't do 'flash' preferring satin finishes and restrained colour palettes. But hey, you're from Texas, so it has to be big, bold and very slightly over the top! Texas and restraint seem to be unnatural bed-fellows

You know my guitars well enough by now, as you know I have a sort of signature purfling/rosette scheme which all of my steel string guitars have, something like 40 or so instruments now. I always use a wide wood purfling taken from the B&S wood paired with ebony/pear/ebony. I never use BWB or its variants as find the contrasts just too harsh. We've discussed my philosophy on this many times over the years, I like all of the colours in the guitars to come from the same pallete, with no jarring or harsh contrasts.

Here's one of my schemes:



Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Here is another I like... If I remember right... it's Zebra purf, Coco binding, Walnut b/s and Cedar top.

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"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man.” -Heraclitus of Ephesus

I bought some rosette from a cheap supplier on ebay, and it was way too thin, much thinner than what LMI offers and you had to be very careful to keep from sanding through them. The thinness also means that they are translucent so the top wood would affect its colors.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

You would be correct. I did forget to mention that I have a dummy side/spacer that I put in my mold for this glue-up. I use the same caul as for my sides, though-it's somewhat flexible.

Nothing fancy about my setup but it works well for me. I think I started doing things this way shortly after reading the Bogdanovich book about 7 yrs ago. IIR, he does something similar.
I'm out of town now but can take a pic when I get back. I probably have some leftovers laying around the shop, too that I could take a pic of. I usually glue up enough for 2-3 guitars at once and saw them as needed.

Colin, thank you for the sincere vote of confidence. I was hoping you would post a shot of your work, for I find it always inspires me. In fact, I had Steve Roberson send me some Swiss pear so I could begin my " British phase" of guitar design. We'll see.
I've used b/w/b violin purfling for so long, it's starting to feel less like a custom shop around here and more like a small factory.
Only, without the production numbers and fat bank account. The worst of both worlds, you might say.

Thanks again for the help and kind words,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

You too, Bob. Appreciate the pics. Very attractive use of the Zebrawood!
And William, thanks for the clarification. Makes sense.

Gracias, amigos,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Who says the purfling has to go all the way around?

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ELEVATE || Next Level Lutherie
http://elevatelutherie.com
&
http://ensorguitars.com

Perfect question, Chris. It's those challenges to accepted norms that can lead one in unanticipated directions. And often good ones...like yours here. I like what you've done...and phooey on mitering the purfling joints!

Thanks,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Sometimes, it's good to take a step backwards, to see how clean and classy a very simple binding/purfling scheme can look. It also takes you back to the basics of concentrating on your workmanship, because you can't hide much behind a basic, simple scheme. I just walked out of the spray booth 30 minutes ago and took a few shots for my client, who happened to have requested just what I'm suggesting here. Very clean, very classy, and all told, very pretty. Ebony bindings(with just a hint of color in the ebony, which can be seen where the flash set it off) and a dead-simple "white/black" purfling line. To my eyes, this is the black tuxedo of schemes; always in style. While the single dude wearing the peacock outfit, at his buddy's wedding, with a ton of colors might get a lot of attention when he enters the room, at the end of the evening, everyone will say that the groom, wearing a basic black tux, looked great. 40 years later, he'll still look great in the photos, but the peacock dude? He'll still be single...

Tai? Just get your stuff from Gurian. No matter who you buy from, they likely buy from them, so just pony-up for the minimum buy and get over it.

Thanks Mario, simple and elegant.
And that is some handsome mahogany, by the way.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I'm in the 'simple but elegant' camp too, or at lest one tries... In addition to Mario's points, I think its generally a much more effective way to set off pretty woods, highlight the instrument outline and focus on the the totality of the design, rather than to direct too much focus on the edge work itself. Not that I only use BWB, on the contrary I use many different shades and line dimensions, according to the effect I'm after, but IMO often the subtle is more powerful than the bold.

Besides, its faster...

Here are a couple of random pictures

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

I've been working with a similar scheme for a while now, 1/16 purfs with black and maple all sandwiching a line that matched another aspect of the build somehow. It's been working very well. I make them up myself, they are quick.

Here's the current, a snakewood .010 line to match some nice BRW:

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Ha. No, it is still the same unfortunate amount.

Also, I'm not taking high figure expensive stuff and taking it that thin, it would about lose all sense of the figure that is so nice to see. I got some inexpensive chunks of either no figure or very light figure and I use that. The color is perfect, deep dark red/brown and even better it has almost no pores. That, coupled with the maple, means no filling of the purflings which is a big help in finishing time. I had been using dark padouk which also looked great but left little tiny holes to fill and was no fun.

In terms of the .010 it is no problem with the 10-20 and a backer board. Usually the ends of the strip might be a thou or 2 less so I get those to .010 and take 80 grit on a block to the middle to match it up. It really is quick. Everything gets clamped in my fret press.

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Burton
http://www.legeytinstruments.com
Brookline, MA.

Check out the ebay seller luthierwood-shop. You can get bundles of 50 purfling strips very cheap. They're from china as well, so probably fairly cheap to ship to Taiwan.

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"I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it."
Pablo Picasso

https://www.facebook.com/FenskeGuitars

Nice work, guys! Thanks for posting,

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Steve, back to your original post, at times like that I like to remember a quote by the late British entrepreneur Anita Roddick, founder of the cosmetics chain The body shop. She once said in an interview:

" I like to see what direction others in the industry are taking, and then walk calmly in the opposite direction"

Have you ever considered going minimal?

Doing so is a very rewarding process aesthetically and allows you to really asses where your building actually "is."

Why not drop the decoration?

See what it's like to just strip everything away.

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nigel

http://www.theluthierblog.com

Hi Nigel, thanks for the post. And by the way, I'd love to spend some time in your corner of GB. Absolutely stunning countryside.
Now, yes--I have considered, and even done, minimal. Then I got tired of my minimal.

When you say "Strip everything away", for starters I'll guess you mean purfling. Then how reductionist do you think one should go? Eliminate bindings? Forego the rosette? All these elements I deem not just useful but beautiful.
So I guess my crisis (mild one, I admit) involves what are the accepted "norms" in guitar design, but how to arrange them in a fresh manner. I think Jason Kostal, for instance, is doing some fresh work. I really appreciate his approach. But if I were he, before long I would feel trapped by that success and be looking for something new.
I dunno, maybe every one of his guitars is different enough he can avoid the slough I'm in. I hope so!

I'll stop baring my soul...this is starting to sound like Facebook...and offer a pic of something gleaned from the 'net.
This is Ryan Gerber's work:





The craftsmanship is first rate. Materials are attractive. Design is clever. Would I copy this? No...but I can be inspired by this,
and I hope to take something away from this example, as in all inspiring work.

With that, let me say a great thanks to all here who have posted their work over the years, and helped me beyond measure.
And you thought you were just putting a pic or two on the web!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

Filippo, you are correct. And I have read Krenov's book, with real satisfaction.
Who knows, maybe this is partly his fault! Kidding aside, I really appreciated his philosophy of letting the wood speak to him and suggest the form of each piece.

Lovely pic, by the way...thanks!

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

I need to read that book Sounds very much like my philosophy. Each piece of wood is unique, so I let that inspire the design. Most often it's the soundboard and/or back and sides that provide the initial idea, and then I pick out the rest of the woods to go with it. But the fun of it is that there are so many variables, it's not at all straightforward.

Physical considerations like the size of the wood sets you have, and density of neck woods (balance consideration), tonal contribution of woods, visual things like color and grain figure, visual+functional things like cutaway, multiscale and armrest bevel, which tend to shift the design away from "old fashioned" and toward "modern", and even the names of woods, location of origin, and historical details relating to species or specific pieces that may suggest certain combinations.

I like that Gerber guitar. Good example of keeping the purfling pretty simple and spending your time on a great tail inlay (absolute minimalism is boring, but not every guitar needs to be totally decked out). Although IMO, the soundboard detail looks wrong, where the red creates a disconnect in the brown purfling line. But it would look a little boring if it just ran straight across, so how about something like this?

Get the brown line closed up, while continuing the triangular shape of the wedge up onto the soundboard.

That guitar is a good example of another thing... geometric/angular designs. Most builders seem to tend toward that, and it can certainly look good, but it's often easier (and IMO, even better looking) to do organic shapes, because there is no "wrong", and thus you don't have to be such a perfectionist. Curves, spirals, leaves, branches, animals. Something inspired by the forest the wood came from A splash of shell here and there to add color and chatoyance does wonders. Too much shell just looks like a wasteful mess.

I don't think purfling alone is the answer you're looking for. It's just one small, linear detail. Beauty is in the interconectedness of everything. Get out in the woods, away from linear human thinking. Bring a guitar, listen, and play along. Then look at the guitar and see if you have any ideas.