Purflings and Bindings

I’ve been working on the purflings and bindings on Roland’s instruments. Around the soundboards, I’ve used two strips of fine black/white/black purfling joined together to give two white lines separated by a thicker black one; this complements the rosette nicely. Then I've bound the edges with ebony. It’s always quite amazing to see ebony bend. Below are a few photos of the process.

Around the back edge of both instruments, I decided to use a boxwood line as purfling. I’ve always liked its cream colour and it complements both the walnut of the guitar and the mandolin's pau ferro. However, rather than just a boxwood line, I made some black/boxwood/black purfling. Although the black lines are only 0.16mm thick, it’s just enough to sharpen up and define the boxwood against the backs.

What with all the tiny mitres it took a long, long time to do, but I’m very pleased with the results.