Any good ideas on bending purfling?

[Dan Bombliss]

Fellas,

I'm sick of paying out the a** for stewmac laminated bindings. When a thing as easy as making your own binding is an option, it's painful to pay these once again inflated prices on the laminated stuff. Koa is up to a crazy number like 12 bucks a strip or something like that, and even simple maple is up to 6 something. A bit ridiculous when you could spend as much on binding as you do b/s (I know you can get expensive b/s)

Anyhow, what I'm getting at is, I'd like to think up a good way to bend purfling (standing up) ideally in a group of them that will work well. Hand bending each one doesn't sound very appealing to me, and I'm not convinced the purfling has the flex to bend dry (I could be wrong, haven't tried). What I'd like to do is bend purfling to lay down in the binding channel and tack it in with #10 super glue, then glue bindings in over top.

I'm just barely even hanging on to paying for purfling still. I'm not far from pulling the trigger to get the purfling cutter, and to laminate my own b/w/b from the sheets from LMI. Seeing as how I have all kinds of scraps, especially laying around from cutoffs from sides, it'd be nice to utilize these for binding as I only use laminated bindings, generally.

Give me some input if you guys have bent this way. I'd like to steer away from bending just one at a time, because then the efficiency almost sets you back up for just paying for it in the first place.

-Dan

[tippie53]

when I bend purfling I like to to it 2 different ways. If this is a 1 off I tape the purfling to the side of the guitar as I bend it. In the case of selling bent purfling I tape a number of sets together and bend these as I would a guitar side. I use the same technique.
If you do try to bend a lone piece it will want to roll so use 2 backer pieces with it to control that. If you are hand bending that can be a challenge. I used to just steam heat it with a tea pot then tape it overnight to the guitar. There are many ways to do it just find the one that works with you. also you can find some unusual purflings at Grizzly Tools.