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I am building a guitar for my Father that has figured Bubinga b/s and a Lutz top. The binding, fret board, bridge, and head plate are all Ebony. A friend of mine was just looking at my newly built tenor ukulele and commented how nice the Paua Abalone looked. They also asked me if I would be using the same Abalone around the edge of the guitar. I hadn’t thought about it before and I’m not sure how it would look. My original thought was to keep it simple looking. I really don’t have any experience in matching woods and purfling so I’m at a loss. Many of you builder have a great deal of experience with matching and combining woods and purflings so please give your opinion. Would the Paua appropriately fit in with the Bubinga, Ebony, and Lutz? Oh yeah, I forgot to add that the rosette is already installed and it is simple with just layers of black and white purfling.

Thanks as always

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Yes It would look great however you are looking at $200 in abalone material at .063 wide and you will still need thin line purfling between the binding and abalone also the abalone and top. The typical cost of top Abalone purfling job is about $210 in material for a dreadnought. With ebony bindings I would go with ebony binding-w/b-abalone-b/w/b-top purfling scheme on the top. In other words, you want white next to the ebony binding and black both sides of the abalone and black against the spruce. This makes the abalone appear to be wider than it is and makes the joints look less noticeableMichaelP38946.7469907407

Philip,

Given that you've already installed a simple bw rosette, and that your preferences are to keep things simple, I would not deviate from this. If you went with abalone purfling, I feel there would be an imbalance in visual appearance because of the simple rosette.

So, speaking only for myself, I would be inclined to use a simple bwbw purfling strip on the top and single white purfling lines on the back and sides to separate the ebony from the bubinga. For the single lines, I like to use curly maple because they give a bit of a sparkle without overdoing things.

Best,

Michael

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Live to Play, Play to Live

I agree with Micheal Mcbrroom - match the purflings to the rosette. It looks fine to have a fancy rosette adn simpler purfling, but nothe other way round IMO.

Micheal P - what planet you getting your shell from ??? $210 for a dread top ??? Thats nuts man - 70 inches of paua(enough for pretty much any top) can be had for about 40 bucks out there, 60 max. I could do a D45 for less in materials than 200.

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

Let me third the good advice that's been given.
Namely, don't out-do your rosette. If it's simple, don't try to upstage it with some whiz-bang purfling.

Steve

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From Nacogdoches...the oldest town in Texas.

http://www.stephenkinnaird.com

[QUOTE=TonyKarol] I agree with Micheal Mcbrroom - match the purflings to the rosette. It looks fine to have a fancy rosette adn simpler purfling, but nothe other way round IMO.

Micheal P - what planet you getting your shell from ??? $210 for a dread top ??? Thats nuts man - 70 inches of paua(enough for pretty much any top) can be had for about 40 bucks out there, 60 max. I could do a D45 for less in materials than 200.[/QUOTE]

Yep I goofed that is cost of a top and back not just a top oops brain fart I buy from Andy $.8 per inch just haveing a bad day yesterday I guess MichaelP38947.3960300926