Binding, Continued

 

Sunday, July 8th, 2012:

The first thing I did this morning, before heading off to church, was to remove all the binding tape from the soundbox, to see how the gluing of the first binding strips went. It went well.

Here's the binding and purfling miter at the end wedge. The binding is a little bit proud of the surface here, but it is flush to the top edge, so no problem. It will be sanded flush later.

Here's a shot of the first section of binding. It all came out nice and tight to the body, without any gaps. Yay!

  

 

Here's a closer shot of how well the binding fit the channel:

It even fit well at the neck end centerline, and at the corner, where I had to miter the ends:

  

INDEX:

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  2. Working on the Top and Back
  3. Finishing the Rosette, Harpbox Peghead Veneer
  4. Bracing
  5. Carving the Braces
  6. Bending the Sides
  7. Neck and Tail Blocks
  8. Pegheads & Top Kerfing
  9. Profiling the Sides for the Back
  10. Soundport and Side Reinforcements
  11. Gluing on the Top
  12. Gluing on the Back
  13. Trimming Overhang & Harpbox Peghead
  14. Routing for Binding
  15. End Wedge & Binding
  16. Scraping the Binding, Binding the Harpbox Peghead
  17. The Box is Done --- On to the Neck!!!
  18. Working on the Neck & Fingerboard
  19. The Neck is Finished!!! Now to the Bridge!!!
  20. Peghead Inlay, Final Sanding & Pore-Filling
  21. Shellac Seal Coats and Finishing!!!
  22. Finishing the Finish!!!
  23. The Final Steps
  24. It is Finished!!!

 

 

Here's the harpbox peghead end, where I also had to do some miter work. There will be a shallow-height binding strip running from the binding all the way around the peghead.

There is a little chip you can see at the top of the peghead (I think it happened when I was routing out the binding slot there), but I will fill that with some mahogany dust and glue later; hopefully, it won't be very noticeable.

 

  

Still Sunday, about 6 p.m.:

Two quick photos of where I'm at now --- I just bent the bass side binding for the top. Right now it's just taped --- I'm going to take a dinner break so that the bend will have some time to "set" a bit.

I tried something different this time, and it seems to have worked. As I began bending this piece of binding, there were some areas in the lower bout where there was a stubborn gap between the binding and the top; it seems the binding strip kind of twisted outward at the top edge, and I was having a hard time hand-bending the "twist" out of it. So what I did was to tape the binding tightly up to the area of the gap, and then, holding the entire soundbox, I pressed the binding into place against the bending iron, constantly sliding it back-and-forth to avoid scorching the binding. Occasionally, I would put a damp piece of towel between the iron and the binding, so the steam would help soften and mold the binding to the curve of the body. Well, it worked so well to get rid of the gaps, that I just continued to do the rest of the bending that way, all the way up to the end of the binding. After I eat dinner, I will remove the tape, check it all for fit again, make any necessary adjustments, and then trim the end for the miter in the corner.

Oh, yeah....the end wedge mitering came out well (I guess I'm getting better at this):

 

  
       

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