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Posted

Just had a funny idea. Has anyone tried using sheet aluminum as purfling? Either by itself or as a sandwich with wood. It seems to me it would be cheap, lightweight and strong, and pretty easy to install, and possibly it would look pretty. 

Posted

It is not a good idea to inlay wood with metals, because wood is hygroscopic and metals aren't. Therefore, while wood will shrink and expand with relative humidity, metal won't, and in time the metal purfling will come loose. It may even crack the wood.

I've seen a broadwood 1870ies piano with copper inlay along the edges, similar to purfling. The copper inlay kept springing out of the wood it was inserted in.

Posted
6 hours ago, baroquecello said:

It is not a good idea to inlay wood with metals, because wood is hygroscopic and metals aren't. Therefore, while wood will shrink and expand with relative humidity, metal won't, and in time the metal purfling will come loose. It may even crack the wood.

I've seen a broadwood 1870ies piano with copper inlay along the edges, similar to purfling. The copper inlay kept springing out of the wood it was inserted in.

Don't a lot of the "fancy" violins have metal inlay?

Still might not be a good idea, but it hasn't all popped out...

Posted

You would need some special glue to combine it with wood. If you want to make the purfling stronger carbon fibre might be more interesting.
If you use materials other than wood you run into problems to trim the purfling. Either aluminium or carbon fibre will ruin the cutting edge of a finger plane, chisel or scraper. 

If they’re would be a good reason to strengthen the purfling I would do it but for both options I don’t see a good reason to do so. It’s easier to strengthen the frame structure with more solid linings. 

 

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