??!!
if you are on a long journey, and you are new, it's your job to slay at least a few dragons on the way... you are expected to! i came across the lizard in the picture above and feel like it's my destiny to piece it back together... kidding. no way!
so VSO#5 has grounded to a halt due to this thing called "life". how inconvenient.
this is where i'm at. the art of purfling inlay continues to elude me. i get nightmares thinking about purfling. i get nervous and usually postpone the operation at least twice before i actually do it. you see, i use a purfling router (1.27mm bit for the 1.3mm purfling) and jig that cuts so fast, a slip of the hand means all the work prior just went down the drain. i can do it by hand, but it takes me 6 times longer. missing in the picture is my dead luthier's foot pedal switch. it helps to ease the anxiety a little without having to fumble for the on/off switch after cutting. plus if i had a heart attacking and die while routing, at least the damage to the work will be mitigated somewhat... the Wecheer rotary i use will take all the bits and jigs made for the Dremel tool.
i use violin fiber purfling as opposed to wood purfling. i wanted to make violins one time and ordered a bunch dirt cheap from here, i remember they used to have stuff i could afford... so until my violin purfling gets used up, it's violin purfling on everything. with wood purfling, i can pound the sucker into the channel and later scrape clean for definition. i am reminded of the work of a violin maker whose violas i would kill for. Feng Jiang based in Ann Arbor, turns this turns into this .WOW.
wood purfling kept breaking on me until i discovered stupidly quite recently that it might work better if i bend them first. fiber installs right away and i can get away with murder. BUT i found out (the hard way) that if i pound fiber into the channel, the black outsides take on the shape of the walls of my badly cut channels. this mauls the line and definition of the purfling and makes it look like its about to throw up.
me and my router can't do corners so those are done by hand with a x'acto knife and channel tool. equal treatment for the back.
in short, purfling = hell
to be continued
