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I want to make purfling that looks likes the attached photo.

I have failed twice now.
First time I laued individual tiles like I would do shell inlay. Looked like crap.
Second time I make up a 1"x29" strip of alternating tiles with a veneer strip in the middle. Then cut them into purfling stips, taped them together and bent them. I ended up with a bunch of broken pieces that could not be worked with.

Please tell me how YOU would make it.

Thanks

Can I ask a few questions?

1. Do you want to use this for a rosette, edge purfling, or both?

2. How big are those tiles?

What are we looking at Dave? Your picture needs some context.

In what way did the tile version look like crap? Seems like the obvious solution to me. Make most of the tiles curved, and sand the ends to fit them together tightly. Take two large-ish squares of wood (like 5" or whatever you have on hand), bend them, glue them together, then cut tiles.

The picure is a close up of purfling lines on a solid bending mold. The total width (or height as it would be in the pic) is 3mm.

Well, one problem right off the bat is that 3 mm is thicker than you should expect to bend a solid piece of wood, much less one that has been sliced up and glued back together. The wood would much rather break along one or more of those glue lines than bend. I think Dennis is right. If you are committed to that size, then I would create the channels by gluing in Teflon or UHMW plastic strips, pulling those out after the glue dries, and replacing them with hand-fitted wood tiles. To save time creating the tiles, you can glue two contrasting layers together, then slice those up for tiles, hand fitting the tile edges.

If you really want strips you can bend, I would figure out a way to glue a single layer of each alternating pattern (not both layers) to a layer of fiber or veneer, bend that, and then do the same thing with the second layer, then glue them together on the guitar (or on a mold, if you prefer). If you don't plan on using lines on either side of this pattern, that is a challenge. I think this type of pattern needs a single layer of something to keep it together during bending.

Hans would shoot himself in the head...
Is there binding around that, Dave?
Whatever you do, you are going to have to lay the inside edge first, then when dry, fit the outside pieces. Depending on which way the inside curves, the outside will be a different length, so you will have to hand cut the lengths and file them to fit.
I think...

3 mm is slightly more than 1/10 of an inch, which I think should be quite do-able. From the picture it looks like the blocks held together fine ,but the center veneer strip broke. For your next try you might substitute fiber in place of veneer. It will stretch a little more and be less inclined to snap.

Haans. Save your bullets.

I like the idea of a next time.
Bending up two separate lines with veneer on both sides sounds like a good one.

This build is is a double. Matched set of a Rosewood and a Mahogany sister with pretty much identical tops. I want to definitively answer the question about the tonal difference between the two.
All inlay, binding etc... Is from the other build.
Purfling on both from both seemed fitting. I am just falling short on execution.

Thanks for the ideas.

No worries Dave, I don't do guns.
Pills work for me.