Inlay and Stringing Wood Combinations

[Chris Griggs]

I'm planning to start a lap desk in the next few weeks and would like to use the project as an opportunity to experiment with inlay. I will using what I think is butternut - the lumber is from a tree that was cut down on my in laws property some 20 years ago - they swear it was a black walnut tree, but I'm fairly certain it's butternut (unless its the lightest walnut on the planet)... anyway that's a story for another day.

I will either be doing some simple stringing or narrow banding and I'm wondering what folks would recommend for inlay species for this project, and also combinations in general. Obviously, you see holly or ebony a lot. Are there any other woods that work well as inlay? What if any other combinations of main project species and stringing/banding contrast well?

What about colored epoxy? Has anyone here had good results with that?

Also, can anyone recommend a place that sells stringing and banding - I believe Woodcraft has some selection of banding but I can't recall seeing any pre-made stringing out there.

Any and all thoughts are appreciated?

[Jim Rimmer]

You could use real Walnut if you are sure this is butternut. Also, consider ebonizing some oak to save money on the ebony. Search here or Google; there's lots of ways to ebonize other woods.

[Chris Griggs]

Well I'm not sure what it is, but either way the walnut I have is a heck of a lot darker. I hadn't even thought about ebonizing. I ebonized some oak dowels once - dissolve steel wool in vinegar and whalla! Intriguing suggestion... Thanks

[Greg Wease]

For dark inlays, Walnut ebonizes just like oak. For white stringing I use sycamore. it's cheaper than holly (and easier to find on the left coast) and holds its color better than maple.

[Chris Griggs]

Sycamore huh? I would have never guessed that. I love sycamore and happen to have some good sized scraps of it around that could make for some really good stringing if I can find some parts that are light enough in color. For this project I like the idea to ebonize some walnut and inlay into the butternut (or whatever it is) - that could be really nice.

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

for stringing, I'm sure Luthier's Mercantile sells something that could work, depending on the sizes you want. I don't know if the thicknesses are right, but I've worked with their fiber material for headplates, and was thinking if you cut it in strips, it could make a nice stringing material.

[Chris Griggs]

for stringing, I'm sure Luthier's Mercantile sells something that could work, depending on the sizes you want. I don't know if the thicknesses are right, but I've worked with their fiber material for headplates, and was thinking if you cut it in strips, it could make a nice stringing material.

They sell something called purfing that sounds a lot like stringing. What's purfing? Will that work?

[Jessica Pierce-LaRose]

I always think of purfling more as the mother-of-pearl or shell strips that rest inside of the binding, but I don't think that's really it, just where I see the term applied the most in descriptions of instruments in catalogs and stuff.

I'm not actually very knowledgeable about the terminology with these things. Maybe George or John could straighten us out.

I think in the end, purfling and binding are really kind of the same thing, but binding tends to indicate something that would also seal off the end grain, and or be exposed in two planes, whereas purfling is more like a stringing. I.E., "binding" would sit in a rabbet, and "purfling" would sit in a groove. Of course, things get muddy then when you have a fancy binding built up from multiple parts sitting next to each other - are the inner strips part of the binding, or are they purfling?

I think the places that sell the material really tend to simply divide up their catalogs by the thickness in the "depth" dimension of the material they're selling. Materials sold as "binding" are going to be taller, (maybe something like a a quarter inch) because they're visible from both the top and the side of the instrument. Purfling is only really visible from the top, so it can be fairly shallow, like stringing - just enough to inlay it securely and work it flush to the surface while still leaving a nice amount in the top. Then you get things like ready made laminated bindings, or parts for laminating your own bindings, that probably would have traditionally been done with purfling - but since on an electric, you can make a rabbet for your binding as big as you want, some folks find it easier to just slap everything in on rabbet and put in a bunch of strips the same height in there then mess with multiple depths or rabbets or grooves, particularly if you're working with plastic bindings. I find fussing with multiple grooves easier than trying to bend a bunch of stuff, but I also don't do a lot of fancy binding.

Anyway, I don't know how accurate I am in my description. Either way, if you were going to order from LMII (or any other guitar supplier) I wouldn't worry about what they call something, whether it's binding or purfling or whatever, I would just look at 1) is it the size you want (i.e. - close to the thickness you want, can you make an appropriately sized groove for it) and 2) is it the material you want (wood, fiber, plastic, celluloid . . . whatever - I assume you would want the first, maybe the second, not the third or fourth) After that, it doesn't really matter if they call it a chicken wing, if it works.

At somewhere like LMI, or other guitar maker/luthier sellers, I would look at both bindings and purflings for materials. Also, look at veneers there - some of the thicker stuff they sell may be more economical if you don't mind cutting it to strips yourself. (I.E., get a sheet of the .06" or .08" fiber veneer, or and cut it into 1/8" wide strips, inlay it standing on it's end, so the "edge" of the veneer becomes the "show" face of the stringing.)

What thickness are you looking for for the stringing lines?

[Chris Griggs]

Wow Josh, thank you very much for the long detailed response. By thickness do you mean depth or width? Depth I'm not concerned about. Width, I can in theory go as thin as .032, but I'm thinking I might go with some wider strips say 3/32 or 1/8. If I go with the strips, cutting my own form a thin veneer could be a good solution.

[Joe A Faulkner]

Not exactly inlay, but I've been messing around with these cutting board designs that incorporate various glue ups and have thought about incorporating the design into a table top. Just passing it on to give you some additional ideas.

[Chris Griggs]

Those are really great Joe. Very vert cool.... Thank you for sharing this!

It looks like in some of them the grain is running different directions. How do you deal with wood movement? Perhaps it doesn't matter for something as small as a cutting board, but I would think you'd need to come up with something if you did a table top. Thoughts?

[Joe A Faulkner]

Chris, you are correct, in each of these boards, there are "butcher block" strips, 3/8" wide, that are running 90 degrees to the vertical strips. My thoughts for incorporating these design into a table top were to take one of the cutting board patters and make perhaps a 42" long "cutting board". Use that as the center of the table top. Take the board to the far left as an example. It is 5 5/8" wide. If it were 42" long, I'd flank it with a couple of maple, hickory or perhaps cherry boards to build a top that was 22" wide lets say for a coffee table or perhaps only 16" wide for a sofa or hall table. I think it would look pretty cool, but I must say now that you have posed the wood movement question, my thoughts on the design are evolving. :)

The widest board in the butcher block strips is only 1 1/4", but I can see where movement along those pieces will lead to trouble. The pieces in the cutting boards are all edge glued. In the case of the butcher block strips they are edge glued and then glued across end grain. The boards are only 5/8" thick to start and finish out around 1/2" thick. Most likely to be used for light service - slicing cheese, or used as serving trays or substitutes for trivets. My wife is even talking about hanging a few on the walls. I'm not terribly worried about the wood movement for the cutting boards, but your point/concern for using this approach in a lap desk or table top is valid. I'll have to think about that. Of course, I may build it and see what happens.

[Chris Griggs]

I'm not terribly worried about the wood movement for the cutting boards, but your point/concern for using this approach in a lap desk or table top is valid. I'll have to think about that. Of course, I may build it and see what happens.

Yeah for small things it probably isn't a concern - may be fine for something like a lap desk too. Certainly you can just build it and see what happens. I have made some projects where I didn't accommodate for wood movement, that conventional wisdom says should be coming apart, but they aren't.