Official Luthiers Forum!

Hello everyone,

I'm working on a pair of flamenco guitars. The bodies are Alaskan Yellow Cedar, with ebony bindings. I'm trying to do binding details equivalent to the included picture cribbed from LMII. Luckily, one of the guitars is for me, and my knife technique is improving and hopefully will be cleaner for the second.



I probably have separate questions about the technique for doing this (I'm thinking about grinding a small homemade pairing chisel with a really low bevel angle), but right now I'm wondering how to keep the cedar clean while I do the detail sanding. I saw a discussion about maple bindings on ebony fretboards in the archives, and the suggestion there is that the maple would clean up once a high grit of sandpaper was reached. I don't know if the cedar will be as forgiving so I wanted to ask the question again. Will the original mess clean up at high grits? Should I put a few wash coats of shellac on before I do any sanding?

My apologies to LMI and Les Stansell for the theft.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

I use a random orbit PC sander with 220 grit .. leaves everything very clean once you have leveled and rounded the binding areas ...

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Cool! Thanks guys.

I probably should have guessed that answer after watching rosette dust clean up on the average top, but I was worried about the ebony vs. other sorts of contaminants. This is the first time I've done ebony bindings. (Aren't they fun to bend? )

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

just be careful by the bindings as the cedar is much softer than the ebony
and you don't want to create a hollow right next to the bindings, similar to
what can happen on the top. I use a scraper right up to the point where the
240 ROS comes into play.

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John Mayes
http://www.mayesluthier.com

Jim-
Yellow cedar and ebony both respond well to a sharp cabinet scraper, and you won't have dust problems.
For fine hand sanding, I've had some luck holding a 'blow-gun' connected to the air line in one hand and blowing the dust away as I sand.
Compressed air is really handy- I bought a $100 4.1 cfm compressor and though I can't run tools with it, it's been useful.
That's a pretty challenging binding detail in the picture from LMI. However, you can take heart in the fact that you will probably get your back inlay strip centered on the heel, unlike the example in the picture! This kind of stuff is all too 'high-risk' for me now- and my hat is off to anybody who tries it.

Cheers

John

if worried, a thin coat of 1# cut shellac will keep the wood clean and sand off easily. may not even have to sand it at all if you are going to french polish.

[QUOTE=JohnAbercrombie]
That's a pretty challenging binding detail in the picture from LMI. However, you can take heart in the fact that you will probably get your back inlay strip centered on the heel, unlike the example in the picture! This kind of stuff is all too 'high-risk' for me now- and my hat is off to anybody who tries it.

Cheers

John
[/QUOTE]

John - I wasn't going to say anything, but I was surprised that someone would pick that particular picture to showcase their work - I've been particularly careful to get my back strips centered on the heel.

I'll swallow my pride and exhibit the first of two attempts. I'm not real happy with how the bass side looks, but it's worse than the final will be here since nothing is sanded out yet.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

[QUOTE=John Mayes] just be careful by the bindings as the cedar is much softer than the ebony
and you don't want to create a hollow right next to the bindings, similar to
what can happen on the top. I use a scraper right up to the point where the
240 ROS comes into play.[/QUOTE]

Yep, I'm trying to get everything reduced to square and level with a scraper before sandpaper touches anything.

John - Thanks so much for your videos, which have helped me a great deal (particularly the voicing one where that final attack on the fingerbraces just does wonders), and best wishes for your time at MacPherson.

_________________
Jim Kirby
kirby@udel.edu

[QUOTE=jtkirby]
I'll swallow my pride and exhibit the first of two attempts. I'm not real happy with how the bass side looks, but it's worse than the final will be here since nothing is sanded out yet.
[/QUOTE]

Your work looks pretty good to me, Jim. I have a convenient 'rule' I use in such situations: "Anybody who would re-do this job is just obsessive about details, and needs therapy." It works for me!

You just have to take a look at some older instruments a few times to realize that the standards for 'neatness' have risen a lot.

Cheers
John

i did two flamenco guitars with yellow cedar and dark binding(in my case madagascar rosewood).

and it really all cleaned up nicely once "finish" sanded.

Cumpiano once said that he never sands using a grit finer than 220, that way the binding's 'wood dust particles' arent small enough to go deep inside the pores of most 'guitar woods'.
and that way he avoids the problem of 'staining'.




Udi.