I'm in the process of gathering ideas and materials for the guitars coming in 2019.
Selecting through backs, preparing centre strips and organizing the various permutations of binding that these choices present. Center strips of ebony with thin bands of flamed sycamore, black palm with thin bands of Spanish cedar strips of quilted Spanish cedar in backs of East Indian rosewood.
With so many different pieces of wood and all the different variations I decided to glue up a new banding design., The photo with the F-clamps shows the various woods glued with fish glue, an excellent glue for this job as it is so heat resistant, a quality I'll be glad of later.
The last two pictures show the start of the chain pattern. Next I'll glue the individual pieces to veneer, one strip will be glued to mahogany veneer which will merge with the cedar in the chain isolating the rosewood and the other strip will be glued to rosewood merging with the rosewood in the chain and isolating the cedar. I used quilted cedar in the chain with side grain on show, hopefully this will give a shimmer to the final pattern.
Wetting the veneer to stop it cupping when I apply the hot glue.
Final pieces glued to veneer, ready to be thicknessed.
So where did this lead to?
Once I had cut a series of bandings I placed them in the mould until I was ready to use them. I noticed the pattern they made while laid side by side.
This gave me the idea to do something like this:
Still to be glued and I'm still not sure what to do with the centre point... ... ... ..
Here is a couple more pictures from the process of making the bands
I look forward to cleaning the rough sawn wood to reveal the pattern, more soon.... .