Bindings And Purfling And Mostly Just Figuring Out Trim

[darwinphilosophy]

So I am re-doing a p-bass and I am going to be putting a flamed maple veneer top on it. As you know a p-bass has a curve on the edges. My question is, is there any way that I could put like a wood edging on it(buying from lmii.com)so that the transition looks a little better from the flamed maple to the rest of the guitar?(also this my seem dumb but i dont know the differences between bindings and purfling and all that so I am just calling in "edging") I have read a message similiar but it didnt really answer my question. Thank you very much

[Myka Guitars]

The curved edge of the bass is going to be tricky. I would strongly recommend doing some test veneer work first especially if this is your first time doing a compound curve. It may or may not work because as the wood wraps around the edges it either wants to compress or pull apart.

Doing a binding edge may allow you to make the transition if you do it so as to avoid the curved potion of the top. It is possible. Maybe have the binding more towards the flat area of the top. This will require either a custom template smaller than the perimeter of the bass in order to do it or a wider binding/purfling scheme. Something like this.

Binding is the wood or plastic on the outside edge of the guitar. The purfling is any lines on the inside of the edge next to the binding, or just away from the edge.

This shows flamed maple binding with silver/abalone/silver purfling on the top edge and silver purfling on the side edge:

This pics shows just ebony binding.

And this pic shows a violin with just purfling. Notice how the top wood has not been routed away and a purfling channel was cut away fro the edge.

~David