There’s two tasks whilst working on the violin’s (or fiddle’s) purfling (or inlay making): cutting it and grooving it (in this order). A purfle is an ornamental border.
In violins, they serve not only decorative purposes: they help the structural design, reinforcing the edges and preventing cracks on the plates.
The first one will mark where to cut, then you can use a knife or gouge (depending where) and then you create the ‘channel’ by removing the wood.
Another name for this employed in woodworking circles is “marking gauge” or “gramil”.
Purfling is not restricted to violins as one could create it in guitars and other instruments as well.
This is a pictorial view of part of our objective here showing the purfling ‘channel’ (or groove) and one purfling strip installed:
Tools for purfling
Let’s start with this basic tool to add to your tool chest, quite commonly used for purfling:
And this is another model, with the same idea:
You could use a so called ‘Ibex purfling cutter’ (that’s the name I’ve found, I could be wrong – could it be the “Mittenwald style”?):
The user “robertdo” (Maestronet Forums) has made public his tool, using screws:
There’s violin makers that prefer to use single blades and two passes, that’s an alternative. Here’s a very cheap solution using a blade shared by Stephen Faulk (Maestronet Forums):
Yet another idea using a single blade:
And finally, there’s also this model (I believe ‘controlling’ this tool might be tricky though):
Tools for grooving the purfling
This is also called “purfling pick”.
Here’s a groove cleaner with extended body:
This model could cost around £30 (no VAT, no shipping costs included). Here’s a beautiful (and shorter) cutter:
There are plenty on-line resources for attempting it. Search for “homemade purflling cutter” or “make your own gramil” on your preferred browser. Here’s a nice Maestronet Forum discussion showing different approaches altogether.
Tips
- If you “got purfling wrong” in your violin making, don’t despair: throw some water, let it rest and see if that would make you feel better 😉
- Remember that you don’t NEED to buy these tools: make one, whatever works
- AliExpress (no relation whatsoever) have reasonably priced purfling cutters/groovers and purflings
- Some people prefer to glue the purfling with PVA glue: I don’t think doing this is a sacrilege as many think, for this application it works
Epilogue
This post didn’t cover using “Dremel” alternatives and similar machine-based routers. Read more about it in this Maestronet topic.
Choose the tools and methods you feel most comfortable with.
Remember: there’s more than one way to do things.