Minor scroll binding mod

[Rob Grant]

I'm just entering the home stretch with three strap hangers and I'm seriously thinking of modifying the binding method.

I've got two F5 mandolins and one F style octave ready for binding. In the past I've bound the scrolls in the traditional manner with the binding rising with the top edge of the scroll and leaving a bit of top or bottom end grain expose in a cyclindrical wedge shape below the binding ledge. Because my scrolls tend to be deeper and more free form then the usual, by the plan florentine, that "cylindrical wedge" can be fairly wide and a bit disconcerting in my opinion (example below: red "X").

What I want to do this time is fully bind the end grain face of the scroll right into the point of the curl and eliminate that bit of exposed endgrain that usually shows between the bottom of the binding and the top of the side. I make my own binding material from local ebony, so custom shaped binding is not really a problem.

I'm just curious if there is anybody else that does this and are there any aesthetic compromises that may result from this minor modification?

[sunburst]

I've seen them done the way you're proposing to do it, and all I can offer is my opinion. I don't really like the look of the binding tapering around the scroll. To me it looks like someone decided to save the time and trouble of cutting and binding the curved slot, and the wide binding looks too massive for my taste. Of coarse, I'm not particularly fond of the look of the top and back wood exposed beneath the binding either, but if we're going to carve those curly strap hangers onto our otherwise clean and neat mandolins we're faced with one or the other, aren't we?
I do believe someone (Hogo?) has experimented with a side-matching veneer to cover the top and back wood between the side and the binding. For a blonde instrument, that might be worth the extra trouble.

[HoGo]

That wasn't me. I'm pretty traditional in this area. Loar styled scroll doesn't show all that much endgrain and it's pretty dark stained there so I don't care. But I remember the thread where someone did the veneer job, can't remember who... perhaps search function may help.

[djweiss]

It may have been Dan Voight...

[Graham McDonald]

I had thought Hans Bentrup, who had come up with one of the delightfully elegant Hans solutions to the problem

[Lloyd]

Could some left over piece of the sides be used rather than veneer?

[Marc Berman]

I remember the thread is was a young luthier showing his work. I can't remember who it was but I do know he wasn't one of the "big" names. He covered the top and back edges with pieces from the side wood and matched the grain.

[Dave Cohen]

I've been flaring the binding out on my scrolls since I first made scrolls. Part of the reason for that is that I have only used wood binding. You can't simultaneously bend wood around a scroll in the xy-plane and make it climb up in the z-plane without having it buckle. The only way to bind a scroll with wood in the traditional way would be to cut the binding in a complex curve in the z-plane. When I encountered that, I decided that I might as well use the binding to cover all of the end grain.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Rob Grant]

Let me make it clearer, I still need to cut a ledge only the ledge I'm talking about would actually be the side join. It would be a "veneer," but an inlayed veneer that totally covers the endgrain of the scroll.

John, I definitely see your point about it looking "too massive," but I don't die or colour any of my mandos and there is a sharp contrast between, lets say a Spruce or King Billy top and my blond Flindersia sides. As a builder, that thin "discontinuity" between the top wood, the binding and the sides has always bothered me. My back scrolls (photo) tend to be deeper and more radical then the top, so this discontinuity when I bind a back is even more stark. Luckily my back timbers are so dense and hard, I rarely bind the backs unless the customer wants it.

Dave, would you have a photo that shows your style? I can't say I've ever had any problem binding the "complex curve" of an F style scroll with timber in the traditional way. The ebony I use is a local timber and the gear tends to handle like plastic when the moisture content and heat is just right.

Thanks guys for the feedback on this. I really appreciate it.

[Mike Black]

Rob, you scroll reminds me a lot of what John Zeidler did.

[Dave Cohen]

I don't know hat timber you used for binding, but all of the samples of EI rosewood, maple, cocobolo, bloodwood, ebony, & etc., that I have tried buckled when I attempted to bend them in all three dimensions at once. Since, I have just gone with what worked easily.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Rob Grant]

Mike, Thanks for the minor comparison with John Zeidler. John was one of my mandolin building heros back in the 1990s. If I could build like John, I could probably give up the "day job."<G>

Dave, I'm using one of the three Diospyros species native to this part of Oz. I believe the log I have laying around the shed right now is probably Diospyros fasciculosa or "grey ebony." I'm not exactly sure because I salvaged the current batch as a well worn log in a Cape York stream bed. I refer to it as "grey ebony" because in bright sunlight, without a finish, the timber appears silver grey rather then black. Under artificial light with a finish it looks as black as the ebony of commerce.

Properly stripped and sized for binding this ebony will literally bend in several dimensions when steamed and heated. I have had problems with Diospyros ferrea, our dry country "black ebony." Ferrea is probably very similar to the stuff you Yanks get from African suppliers. Ferrea is a dry country tree and tends to be somewhat brittle and full of hidden small cracks or weak points. The ebony I'm using now is more of a rainforest timber. I believe "grey ebony" has a range that extends from northern New South Wales through Queensland and up into New Guinea.

[Rob Grant]

Finally we're getting some dry weather. Seems that La Niña has decided to go harass someone else until next year!<g>

The drier conditions have given me the chance to try the F5 binding modification. For those that are curious, here's what it looks like. The instrument has not been sanded back and it is still in the "white" (or should I say King Billy Pine "pink"<g>) The binding is local ebony, the back is "Queensland Walnut", the sides are "Scented Maple" (a Flindersia), the neck timber is a figured Flindersia locally known as "Queensland maple"...

[sunburst]

I'm envious of you available local woods! This comes from someone who lives in a state where red spruce, red maple, sugar maple and others grow. We have nothing hard and black enough for traditional looking fingerboards and such.
Maybe if I ever got to go on that trip to Oz I've always wanted...

[amowry]

That's some impressive bending work, Rob! Looks great.

[crazymandolinist]

I like that. I was watching for this thread to see if I'd like the method or not. I think I might just plan on doing that if I ever end up doing a scroll. Looks better to me. I also seriously envy you ozzies for your choice of strange and interesting lumber. The snakes and spiders though, I enjoy not dealing with

[Rob Grant]

I like the look myself. When I had trouble bending the wider binding, I thought I'd drop the idea and just go for the traditional binding method, but there was a slight fault on the scroll glue line between the top and the side material that bugged me. The easiest way to eliminate that fault was to cut my binding ledge along the seam on the scroll as one does normally along the sides. I found it a lot easier to hand cut a ledge that extends down to the seam in the difficult scroll region.

Andrew, it does look like an "impressive bend," but I have to admit that I "cheated" with it. What you see is a cut and shaped ebony inlay. I've found that it's actually quicker, more efficient and better looking if I cut and form my scroll binding (with a bandsaw and various size drum sanders) into the exact curve I need. The particular local species of ebony that I use seems to lend itself to fine, complex shapes. The first time I did this I was amazed how thin a curve I could create without the material shattering. I only do this with the scrolls as the rest of the instrument involves relatively straight forward heat bending. With ebony, it's pretty easy to make the binding splices invisible. This method also eliminates the problems that Dave mentions having with binding the scroll with wood.

[grandcanyonminstrel]

If you're after complex 3 axis curves with a dark binding, try African blackwood (d. melanoxia). Once you get it up around 275 degrees F, it is almost a liquid plastic that stays flexible in all directions for about 30 seconds before it cools and sets up. I can bend it in a figure 8 knot with no issues, and I use it regularly to veneer the complex curves on a Monteleone style tailpiece. On the not so nice side, all of those black liquid resins tend to turn your bending iron into quite a mess....

j.
www.condino.com

[Dave Cohen]

James, d"ya mean to say that your bending iron isn't already streaked w/ hardened dark gook? Mine certainly is! I scrub it off every so often, but it just keeps coming back, kinda like crabgrass.

I've managed to actually bend the wood binding around the scroll buttons, etc. Only place where I have consistently had to 'cheat', as Rob puts it, is around the inside of that tiny little hoodledink at the upper left of the F-style headstock. Bending the harder exotics to the inside of a 3/16" (ca < 5 mm) diameter hole is pretty tough. I've actually done that, but I usually broke enough pieces along the way that it is more economical to cheat. That, and I have had to point out where I cheated, even to other luthiers. You really have to squint to see the difference in that tiny feature.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[Dave Cohen]

Here are a couple of images of multi-layer wood binding around a scroll, all bent. In this case, rosewood, unfigured maple, bloodwood, and curly maple.

http://www.Cohenmando.com

[grandcanyonminstrel]

Multi-layering wooden binding is always a good way to work through the hard areas. On challenging woods like bloodwood, I'll sometimes sequentially cut all of the binding from the same board and then thickness them very thin. If you are carefull, you can glue them all back in place such that the individual layers blend in to look like grain lines. Even though it is a lot of work, on many levels I prefer wooden binding.

j.

[sunburst]

Rosewood around a heel 'button' in three layers.

[Rob Grant]

Thanks lads for for the multilayer binding advice. I'll try it out the next batch of binding material I cut. What sort of adhesive are you using between the layers?

I know plastic bindings are easier to bend and apply, but I just can't bring myself to tack a synthetic trim on beautiful, natural timber. Wood rules in my tiny workshop. I love stuff!

[sunburst]

Wood bindings, including the layered ones, are one of the few situations where I think Titebond is about the best, so that's what I use.

[Rob Grant]

I've got plenty of Titebond. Thanks for that John.

There is a timber known locally as "Cooktown Ironwood." Some wag renamed it "Red Ebony" years ago in an attempt to value add his product. The gear is actually a member of the Leguminsae family and not in any way related to true ebony. Cooktown Ironwood is a rock hard timber with a rich red to Burgundy colour. I've tried to use it for binding, but it splits to buggery. Maybe thin laminations, as suggested, would be the answer(?).

The red centre timber on this three piece neck is Cooktown Ironwood...