Inlay Question

[dlrion]

I have a friend who wants me to create a custom guitar for him, and we found this guitar that has a really nice inlaid border.

I can do straight inlays all day long, but curving them like this is beyond me, does anybody know how to do this??


Nelsone I know you do some complicated stuff like this have you ever curved an inlay.

http://images.google.com/imgres?img...s&start=36&um=1&hl=en&sa=N&ndsp=18&tbs=isch:1

Dan

 

[Joe Scharle]

Have you looked at the Grizzly selection?

 

[striker]

Don't know if this speaks to your issue or not but Rob Millard talks about doing curved inlays in his Blog. In any event, his website is worth a look.


http://americanfederalperiod.com/blog.html

Stephen

 

[nelsone]

You can probably get a gentle curve out of standard banding, but I haven't tried any tight curves. The person you need to contact is Matt Furjanic (Inlay Banding). He is on the forum and makes bandings. Shoot him a PM.

 

[dlrion]

You can probably get a gentle curve out of standard banding, but I haven't tried any tight curves. The person you need to contact is Matt Furjanic (Inlay Banding). He is on the forum and makes bandings. Shoot him a PM.

Do you know what his screename is??

Thanks

Dan

 

[nelsone]

Do you know what his screename is??

Thanks

Dan

Matt Furjanic

 

[Ozzie-x]

Don't know if this speaks to your issue or not but Rob Millard talks about doing curved inlays in his Blog. In any event, his website is worth a look.


http://americanfederalperiod.com/blog.html

Stephen

Interesting, good concepts. He makes the inlay and makes it in the round shape. Good technique for the old bag-of-tricks. Ok, back to Dan's guitar, the inlay on that guitar appears to have been split and spliced in the apex of the curves and other critical points. That approach would definetly work if you were careful in matching up the colors/woods on either side of the splices. Plus some patterns would lend themselves better than others to splicing. I have soaked simple stringing in water prior to inlaying and bending around much gentler curves many times (an example of a recent project is below). I wouldn't recommend soaking made-up banding unless it is put together with some type of waterproof glue, otherwise it would fall apart to giblets.

View image in gallery​

 

[nelsone]

... if you were careful in matching up the colors/woods on either side of the splices...

Key statement!

Taking a closer look at the guitar pic and zooming in, it looks like he forced the banding around the curve. There are splits on the outside of the curve.

 

[Matt Furjanic]

Hi Dan, The banding in your picture is not totally bent around the curve. There are at least two mitre joints (at the intersections of the greatest radii) in the segment shown. It does appear to be bent on the gentler curved areas. Bending banding is always a problem in my experience. If it is very thick, it will always split at the bend. One way to do it is to inlay the banding components separately. That is: in your picture, the banding would have to be inlayed into a routed channel in about 7 segments. The inner and outer bands going in like laminations. The banding segments being constructed individually and inserted one at a time. The thin segments may bend on their own, or heating them with a solder iron to encourage the bend. The thicker segments may have to be mitered - depending on their wood species and the thickness.
I actually have a banding similar to the one you show - my # 154 - you can see it at www.inlaybanding.com, but if you would want to use this or something similar, it would not bend on it's own, but have to be inlayed as I described.
I am in Monroe, NC, so if you are close by, maybe we can get together and work out a solution. Matt...

 

[CarvedTones]

Kind of a nit, but not...

I call that edge binding rather than inlay. You can use a tool like this:

http://www.stewmac.com/freeinfo/Routing/Binding_purfling_channels/i-5260.html

to get that very precise rabbet on the curved edge. I could be wrong, but I don't think be bought a pre-made band. I think the used two layers of the thin diagonal pattern running in different direction and cut and placed the pieces in between. Looking close at this part:

I see a few gaps and/or cracks in the dark wood where he was trying to work around that corner without miters on the little blocks. I am not knocking his work; that would be really hard. I also see that the inner and outer diagonals do not stay aligned like in Matt's #154. I also see 2 corners in there (slight, but they are definitely not arcs) which he could have used to his advantage (that would be where to put the miters). I defer to Matt on how to do that. I have learned enough about it to have a critical eye, but haven't developed the talent to do it right...

 

[dlrion]

Matt,

I appreciate the suggestions. I have bad news and good news: Bad news, I am 4 hours away.:BangHead:

Good news, I may just take the opportunity some weekend soon anyway (under the guise of a camping trip) and come find you for some help. :icon_cheers

Right now I am waiting for parts in the mail... it sucks.

Thanks a bunch though.

Dan