help with purfling gaps

[blnote]

The binding is a little tall, .250, maybe seeing a layer of spruce is appearing as another ledge. I agree with understanding what happened before continuing, I don't think a half inch of purfling after trial & error will be a good look.

[Kevin Sjostrand]

I am guessing that you must be using Ken's hand held routing guide, not his table mounted inverted system, cause there would be now way to do that on his table system, but if you tip the hand held forward while routing, well then, that can happen I think with just about any of the hand held guides, including the one I've been using.
A patch of spruce will not look good but perhaps you could put a "patch" of some other wood, incorporate it into your purfling scheme and call it a classic design feature.....I am serious here, be creative....like a signature feature....just thinking out loud.

Kevin

[blnote]

Kevin - Yes I was using the handheld. I did want to stay true to the D-18 kit but since I'm looking at changing the purfling anyway I like your idea and am going to give it some thought. These 2 gaps are almost the in the same place on either side anyway, this might be a lemons into lemonade opportunity!

[kencierp]

I was looking at some Cole Clark guitars the other day -- those have wood and pearl inlay at many different location on the soundboard looks artistic to my eye perfectly OK.

Looking at your pictures again I am still confounded as to what you did there -- the IA attachment flexible foot simply/normally does not allow router to tip that much or allow the bit to take such a deep off location bite.

[tippie53]

you can do a herringbone d18 now

[Ben-Had]

To my eye, the bottom ledge looks thinner below the "mistake" than the rest of the ledge indicating the unit was tipped away from the side and into the top. I did that on my first attempt with the same result, not quite as long or deep though. It's why I use a tower now. My hand just isn't steady enough any more.

[kencierp]

There's more to this then not having steady hands -- the KMG attachment takes care of that situation. The shallow binding channel is indeed another indication of perhaps some geometry problem with the rim -- the same problem on the other side? The top is pretty much flat (or is supposed to be) and really any router with a simple guide can be used for the sound board So another question is which ledge was done first? Binding or purfling?

[tippie53]

The variability of hand helds is why I to went to the tower style units. That doesn't mean hand held units won't work , you have to learn how to use them to locate properly. I find the bearing bits more accurate but again there is a difference between a guitar or 2 a year and 6 to 12 guitars.

[blnote]

I noticed the same thing in the picture and the binding channel is a little off. I did the binding channel first, then the purfling. Since I'm using Ken's IA router setup the binding channel isn't a factor in the mistake.

This is really just operator error and for some reason I had a problem staying against the rim around the shoulders. To Ken's point, I was wondering if the guitar itself was a contributing factor, the top did require more pressure to close than I thought it should, but this is my first guitar I'm still amazed that it looks like a guitar and hasn't fallen apart!

I like that Cole Clark FL3, something creative to fix these gaps would be cool but I'm going with the herringbone and some extra patience on the shoulders.
Thanks

[tippie53]

sometimes things just happen .. This is what I call a design enhancement opportunity .