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Here's a few photos of the Stelle 12 I'm building. Top is red spruce and back is ribbon sapele.
Box ready to close. Modified Stella bracing and 3 brace back.



Purling and binding glued on.





Sapele back and ribs with B/W/B purfling.



Thanks for looking.

Very nice work, Haans!

Sumptuous!

Thanks AJ and Nick!
Although Oscar Schmidt & Co did make a few oak 12's, Huddie's was mahogany...probably Honduras. I just prefer sapele because it it harder than the Honduras available these days and helps to make the Stella tone happen better than Honduras.

Finally finished the construction part of the Stelle 12. Here's a few photos, ready to sand. Won't be able to do finishing on it for another month or so...





Captured neck splice...



Offset pyramid bridge...



Ready for sanding and finish...

Sheesh! That's nice.
I should visit this part of the forum more often, lots of interesting stuff.
Only discovered it recently!
How did I miss that?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I bookmark the "active topics" page so I don't miss anything! Everyone should!
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/search.php?search_id=active_topics

Hans, your mandolin designs are really cool!
Great website.
Dan

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wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

Guess I should visit more often myself.
Thanks guys, still haven't gotten around to starting finishing on the Stella. My builds are all stacked up and first come first finished. Have a IRW GC in setup, and several in finishing now.
Good idea Nick, I should bookmark the active topics.
Thanks for the interest, guys!

Hans, I absolutely love that Stelle! Everything about it. When you use such wide purfling schemes, do you have to use wider lining/kerfiing to avoid routing the top off when you route the rabbets for it? The pictures seem to show "normal" gluing width on your rims, but it seems as though the wide purfling plus the binding might require routing really far in from the sides (unless you aren't routing all the way through the soundboard for the purfs.

I visited your site again yesterday...all I can say is...WOW. I'm kind of sorry that I build, because I'd love to buy one of your sweet parlors, but the money's all tied up in tools and wood....I bet I'm not the only one that pines for other builder's guitars. Hope you keep documenting your builds. I learn so much from them. Thanks! Beth

Thank you Beth!
Kerfing is normal, but yes, with purfling that wide, you do have to be careful. It does extend over the kerfing. My tops are tapered, but never much fall below .090" or so at the edge. Many of my tops are more like .125 at the center. Most of the 12 strings have very thick tops, upwards of .160". Most abalone is at .060, so I rarely go as deep as that.
I use a modified jig for cutting mandolin soundhole purfling on oval holes.
Here I have just finished the rough cut of the inside edge of the purfling.



Next I rout the binding slot.



Lastly, I chisel off the purfling slot excess. It provided a surface for the rout of the binding slot. Lately I have just been routing it off with a dremel router and 1/8" bit. You can see that half the top is still there, and the purfling gets glued in with LMI glue.



Slots are cleaned up with various safe edge files.



Purfling is applied.



The purfling edge is filed and lastly the binding is installed.
You should build your own parlor! Don't X brace it...

Brilliant, Hans! Thanks so much for sharing that and posting the pictures. I can't imagine wrangling all that purfling and binding in one go! I just did a top with one small purf strip and binding and glue and bad words were EVERYWHERE . But yes, I do want to make a parlor. And I will follow your advice and watch your process (I think you have pictures of one of your parlor top's bracing schemes). I can't wait to get one of those little buggers in my hands.

Beth, I have long ago stopped trying to apply purfling and binding at the same time, especially wide or multi piece purfling. You will get too much variation in width, and you must file the edge of the purfling and lower part of the top to the binding slot for a good fit of the binding to the purfling. I usually rout the top just a tiny bit large for the purfling and file the under part of the spruce down.
Yes, sometimes it does get a little testy applying 4-5 strips of purfling and the teflon spacer is really a SOB sometimes.
Hope all this helps you out...

Hey Haans,

Really cool stuff. Is that duct tape you use for your purfling/binding? If so, doesn't it tear up the fibers from the spruce when you remove it?

Thanks!
Murray

Thanks Murray!
I've stopped using duct tape and now use strapping tape which is even more sticky. The Idea is when the glue is dry, you start at an end of the strip and roll it off, not rip it off. I also most only use red spruce and that is a stronger top wood, although you still can rip chunks out if you are careless. It probably takes longer than cord or long pieces of inner tube or whatever, but you can pull strapping tape mighty tight. Notice the binding is not the usual .060" but more like .090" too. It's a pain to bend. Usually hit it with a heat gun too...

Finally tinted the top on this one to get ready to fill and dye the sapele back and ribs. Scraped all the purfling and applied 4 good coats of lacquer. Will mask off and then fill with black paste filler.



Seems as through finishing will be non-stop this summer...

Have a few coats of lacquer on the ribbon Sapele. Did my first level sanding and applying a second set of coats...

Beautiful Hans!

That baby is going to sound fantastic playing House of The Rising Sun and much, much more!

I love that ladder/herringbone purfling... I'm usually pretty minimalist when it comes to that kind of stuff but on yours it really looks great

Thanks guys!
Probably not House of the Rising Sun, Hesh, but more like Bourgeois Blues, Fannin Street, Pigmeat and Silver City Bound...
James I really like the purfling too, but it's a bear to apply. Have to buy it split or split it yourself. Doesn't look good on a lot of instruments, and I really don't like it on the back like Stella did, but it does look good on a vintage style instrument. I mostly like my backs pretty plain...it's about the wood on the backside.