Purfling Plane

[Will Reyer]

Purfling Plane 09/09/19 Will Reyer

My daughter was up this summer from Texas, saw my #6 guitar, and asked me how I made the purfling. I didn't have time to give her a useful explanation as we all went up to Little Traverse Bay with the granddaughters for a week together.

So now that I'm needing bindings for guitar #7 I took some photos and sent her this explanation:

The bindings are the outside wood where edges meet and thicker than the purfling, which is also used in thin lines of contrasting colors for the rosette at the sound hole. Purfling also goes between the soundboard and the binding and/or the sides/back and the binding. Here (photo) I'm trying to make binding out of tiger maple for guitar 7, grain runs up and down and sometimes tears out chunks - won't know until I'm done if they're gonna be useful.

The depth of cut (thickness of finished piece) is adjusted by the wingnut below the table. The plane is a quarter-inch diameter upcut spiral router bit driven at 14,000 rpm's by an old Harbor Freight laminate trimmer motor, protruding through the hole in the plywood which clamps in my vise. On the infeed side at right there's a bent piece of pine holding the maple down and on the left, on the outfeed side, is a piece of quarter-inch diameter drill rod doing the same thing. You of course have to push-feed the stock.

On the back side you can see that the transparent base of the old laminate trimmer is missing the geared depth adjustment, broken, that permitted accurate depth of cut changes, but it's not important on the planer usage so I've got a radiator hose clamp holding the motor to the base. The C-clamp is holding a nozzle from a shop vac to the point of use to keep the chips down.

Also attaching photo planing some purpleheart purfling. Bit here was a straight cutter with outboard (extraneous) bearing; the spiral bits cut cleaner.

My luthier friend here, Kjell, says he uses his drum sander to do this but prefers to buy pre-made purfling. I'd be interested in seeing photos and hearing methods you might use.

This is far from being a splendid and foolproof, no-waste, machine but it was quick and dirty like all good carpenter's fixtures, and I may yet try something better, except at my current production rate, it isn't worth the bother.

My friend Carl, who builds F5 mandolins, tells me Antonio Stradivari was making violin purfling into his '90's, though he says the quality was deteriorating. I got no idea how Stradivari did his purfling but could easily see him making single-use plane bodies with stout plane irons honed scary sharp and just planing out maple, pear and ebony.

[John Parchem]

Very nice! That is a great setup.

[Dave Bagwill]

I like that.

[Herman]

Great thinking Will. I can think this will work out fine. I buy my purfling pre-made, 'cause I have no satisfaction in make them myself. As is curved lining. But if you have some joy in making it, well, good for you. Keep'm coming.
Herman

[Carl Dickinson]

I use sleds on my thickness sander with sandpaper on the top to keep the pieces from sliding. 36" and 72" sleds. Can get it down to .06" or less.

[Will Reyer]

Carl, I think you're basically doing what my luthier friend here, Kjell, does. I've got sleds but haven't tried them for purfling.

I went out to the shop this am and dug up the pile of assorted purfling I've kept that looks to be long enough to use for rosettes (photo). I sorted out 3 pieces of walnut, in front, followed by 3 pcs of maple behind, and the rest of the stuff in the background, in photo. The selected walnut pieces measure .023” thick and the maple .027”.

Also attaching a photo of the minimal rosette I'm using for guitar #7, in progress. These 5 lines fit in a routed groove that was made with an eighth-inch diameter router bit, making them about .025” each.

It's a lot easier to make thin pieces of purfling suitable for rosettes than making 32”lengths like I need for between bindings and soundboards/sides/backs. To do that you need long grain that doesn't run out between faces.

I've had good luck with walnut, maple, mahogany, and even purpleheart, though the last is brash and brittle. The tiger maple bindings shown in the planer have grain going up and down and spit out some chunks. I made 6 and hope to be able to select and bend at least 4 useful ones from them.

[Carl Dickinson]

I haven't tried to get it that thin yet. I'll have to give it a try. Been using figured maple for binding but have some ebony and manzanita I could try for rosettes. Been using B/M/B from Grizzly for that.