Decorative Binding - part 1

 I decided to fit the binding in two parts. First I cut a shallow recess all around the top. Because of the geometry, I ended up having to make a little jig (in the top photo) with a scalpel blade mounted in it. This was used to make a fixed depth cut in the belly wood, and I then removed the waste wood by hand, with a chisel.

I chose the edging materials to match the rosette. It was made with strips of macassar ebony (about 1.5mm thick) sliced across the grain. I glued these in with HIDE GLUE.

I finally got round to making up a batch of hide glue with a decent consistency, and I have to say I found it quite easy to use.  The trick seemed to be to coat both surfaces to be glued and to work quickly. The only problem was if the bits of edging moved around while the glue was cooling. In that case they had to be removed, cleaned up and redone (this only happened on a couple of pieces and was not very time consuming).

The next day I scraped everything flush. The next step will be to cut another ledge to take a strip of holly which will add a nice contrast, protect the edge (holly is quite hard) and hide the belly end grain.