The purfling on this critter was a bear! Herringbone is no big deal, but the thin maple and bloodwood strips to set off the maple binding were incredibly difficult for me to get in place. I simultaneously tried this binding scheme on another sycamore guitar, and it didn't go so well. But, that guitar has a cutaway, and that's where its problems arose. I eventually abandoned it in favor of a simpler binding scheme on that instrument. This one turned out just dandy. For giggles I rubbed it with some alcohol, just to get an idea of what finish will do to it. The redwood gets darker and richer, the sycamore yellows a bit, but its figure takes on a three-dimensional quality. This darkening makes the whites in the herringbone appear whiter. It's all very dramatic.
The redwood top is very responsive! It's more resistant to puncture wounds than western red cedar, but is also more brittle and quite fussy to work with. But it's very pretty, and a lovely match with the sycamore and the binding/purfling scheme. PGM has ordered up a 13-fret neck with slotted peghead, a nice cocobolo fretboard with flame maple binding. I can't wait to see this!
I'm commencing to work on necks for all these bodies. Neck blocks are attached to the eclecto guitar and the tailpiece sycamore guitar.
More soon.
1 comment:
why are guitars so sexy?
jcl
Post a Comment