Purfling Designs (herringbone)

[Greg Carter]

I'm moving along well into construction of a nice guitar, which is completely hand made from rough wood; rosewood, spruce, flame maple, and ebony. I want to put the Herringbone design around the top. My question is can you form or bend this material, or not? If so, does it need to be soaked and then steam formed. Just how is it done? My guitar is similar to a '000' but somewhat larger, so the preformed material would probably not work. Thanks for the help. Greg

[ken cierp]

Here you go:

[John Parchem]

The herringbone that LMI sells, I believe made by Michael Gurian, is really tolerant of being bent with heat. I had no problem bending it on a hot bending pipe to a Martin 0 size. It actually was the first thing I bent by hand.