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I was asked in another thread to explain how I did the binding around the sound hole below so as to have the same pattern as the main ring of the rosette.



In the photo below, the rosewood tiles and cocobolo dividers are glued together on the template and ready for routing out the main ring of the rosette. You can see three circular lines on the lower tiles. The two outer ones represent the main ring. The innermost line is the diameter of the sound hole (4"). To make the ring that I used to bind the sound hole, I routed a ring 0.080" wide using the inner line as the inside edge of the ring. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the ring after it was done. The square in the middle was the same thickness as the tiles and it was there to support the router base.




I then routed a channel in the joined top plates that was just barely wider than the binding ring and almost the full depth of the top. I inlaid the ring into the channel with the ring rotated relative to the main ring to align the dividers in the binding with the centers of the main ring tiles. Later, I routed out the sound hole leaving the binding.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Thanks for this! I have not yet tried to bind a soundhole (save for a little curly-q hole in a mando), is there anything special you have to do to deal with the endgrain glue joints? with radial binding like this you are actually gluing endgrain in both pieces.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Thankyou for that Jay! I would still like to see pictures of the whole instrument when you get a chance. From the small portion I've seen the design is stunning.
Wendy

Are you asking about the joint between the binding and the spruce at the fretboard and bridge sides of the sound hole? Since I didn't route the channel all the way through the top for inlaying the binding ring, the ring actually sits on a thin shelf of spruce so there is side grain gluing under the ring in addition to the end grain gluing around the outside edge of the ring. The shelf is about 0.015" thick. When I did the round over sanding of the binding after opening the sound hole, I used just as much pressure as I use when rounding over the body binding and it didn't budge a bit. It's very solid.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I wouldn't say it's stunning compared with a lot of the guitars I've seen on this forum, but hopefully you like the rest of it. Here are some non-glamour type shots taken on the carpet.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I have bound a couple of soundholes with a piece of regular binding using this technique, but this open up a new path - thanks. Very nice guitar by the way.

Ec

I see. So I guess when you sand the roundover, the little bit of spruce under the binding gets blended away. Nice!

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

That's right. It gets blended away at the round over but is still there under the back edge of the binding (about half the width) if that makes sense.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Leaving the shelf of Spruce is a great idea! Thanks for sharing!

Smart looking heel!

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Pat

I have done this a couple of times and was advised on a method that worked. Sand the spruce so the top is what you want it to look like, make the soundhole binding groove just less than the depth of the spruce, install the binding, then when you sand for final thickness, do most of it on the back and it gets sanded away.

Ed

Very nice looking guitar! I think everything works together beautifully from the wood choices to the shape of the heel and end of the fretboard. Thanks for posting it. Great work!

Thanks Jay
I think I am the one who asked for a tute on this and you have explained it very clearly. Nice trick!
Cheers
Mark