Official Luthiers Forum!

Hola. I've seen a few of you do white purfling in your fretboards, and I
was curious what you use and how white it stays. Seems like ABS would
stay the cleanest. Anyone use white fiber though?

Thanks

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Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

White fiber works great.   I think a lot of folks imagine problems where there aren't any...

Thanks Rick. I'll give it a go.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

White celluloid.

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Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

That works fine, too.

Thanks guys. I've never used celluloid. Do you recommend the Weld-on
cement?

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

I get my best results with CA. Weld-on works, as does any acetone based cement. I've even glued it with PVA glues; if you give a wipe with acetone before using them, they can adhere OK, and I've even had OK results without the acetone wipe. But I trust CA the most. ABS plastic is quite a bit harder to glue than celluloid.

_________________
Howard Klepper
http://www.klepperguitars.com

When all else fails, clean the shop.

G'day Mike,

        Ivory for me !






Craig Lawrence

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
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Thank you, Howard.

G'day Craig. That's a fine lookin' neck you got there. Did you have some
long pieces? I've got a bunch of reclaimed piano keys, but it would take
quite a while to cut them all up and prep.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger

Yep Mike , it takes a lot of mucking around . Just one other reason it takes me thousands of hours to complete a guitar.
Key tops are graduated in thickness (front to rear),about .7m.m. to .5m.m. ,so you have to thickness them , which isn't easy when they are so short.
On top of that , nearly all of them will have hollows worn in them from the pianists fingers.
As a piano tuner ,I have quite a lot available and choose the tops from the very treble and bass ends of the keyboard ( less wear ).As Ivory comes in various colour shades, I take them off the same keyboard to keep the whole thing uniform in colour.

It's worth the effort ( to me anyway ) as I can't bring myself around to using plastic ,and hey! ,I've got ivory purfling !

Craig Lawrence

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CRAIG LAWRENCE of AUSTRALIA
_____________________________________________

I just bound a fretboard about an hour ago using maple veneer for the purfling.

Al

I also use maple. I prefer the natrul white of maple to the stark white of fiber or abs

I am currently using cream colored plastic purfling which seems to better match the white purfling elsewhere that's under a lacquer finish.

Great. Thanks for all the input, everyone.

_________________
Mike

"The Dude abides. I don't know about you but I take comfort in that. It's good knowin' he's out there. The Dude. Takin' 'er easy for all us sinners. Shoosh." The Stranger