Perhaps you’ve seen a photo or two of a special binding procedure that I sometimes do, which has multi-colored strips of wood in an ordered pattern as the binding. It has been done on a Candyshop psaltery, and also on one that was made to mimic the pattern of a coral snake. Here’s a picture of a psaltery that I’m currently working on that shows the pieces all cut and ready to be assembled for the coral snake pattern. It takes a lot of work compared to regular binding, but the effect is really neat.