Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi all,

I'm working on a classical guitar and I'm considering binding the ebony fret board in ebony. I've done that for steel string guitars and I think it gives a nice, clean look. However I'm wondering if this would be considered a faux paux in the classical guitar world. None of my reference materials show a bound fret board and I did a little searching here to see if any you folks have done that and it seems not. Do classical guitar players like to see the fret tangs?

Cheers,
Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Pat-
When I built a classical at Sergei deJonge's, the fingerboard was bound with ebony the way you describe.
I think all the guitars from the deJonge shop have bound boards, but I could be wrong on that.

I do all my guitars that way now- it just looks so much better and isn't too much extra work, really.


BTW, Sergei also puts some position markers on the edge of the board- he said he was tired of seeing his guitars with 'white-out' and bits of tape stuck on the board edge-sometimes by professional players! Whether this was just an amusing story for coffee-break listeners or not, I don't know. It impressed me, though.....

Cheers
John

Instead of binding, you can trim the fret tangs a little bit, as if your WERE doing binding. This will create a pocket that can be filled with ebony dust followed by a drop of CA, and one more spec of ebony dust. Sand smooth and the fret tangs are gone, and you still have a traditional-looking classical!

I have done the trimming the fret ends like for a bound board and filling with dust and CA like Scottie mentioned on 4 guitars. It looks real good and is quite quick and easy to do though it might cause a problem on a later fret job.

Fred

_________________
Fred Tellier
http://www.fetellierguitars.com
Facebook page http://www.facebook.com/pages/FE-Tellier-Guitars/163451547003866

Pat, do you really care if someone, somewhere, considers it a faux-pas? There are almost as many opinions out there as there are varieties of fish in the ocean. If you like the look of it, do it. I've only made one classical guitar so far, but decided to do exactly what you're debating, along with domed fret ends. It looks fabulous and everyone who's played the guitar loves both the way it looks and the way it feels when playing. Actually, no one has even noticed that the fretboard is "bound":



Cheers,
Dave F.

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"

I think binding on the sides of the neck would add some stiffness and strength to the neck. And that wouldn't be a bad thing for more stablization. Ithink it also looks better than just filling with ca.

Things like this are always a matter of opinion, but, for me......

1)It looks better- always. CA and dust doesn't really look the same as solid wood, as I discovered when I tried filling some fingerboard divots with dust/CA. (Don't forget- everybody seems to be buying those magnifying visors! )

2)There is a very small space between the end of the tang and the binding, so that if the FB shrinks a bit, there is room for the tang. If you fill with dust and CA, you can in theory 'pop out' the fill.

3) I don't like to glue in frets if I don't have to, though lots of folks do it.

4) If you are going to trim the tangs short anyway, you have lost 90% of the time advantage over binding.

5) It just seems more craftsmanlike to me.

6) You have to trim the board anyway, so why not use those offcuts?

7)I don't like working with sawdust and glue, and I have to do it enough to hide my mistakes and flaws in 2nd grade wood!

Cheers
John

I think the reason why most people don't bind the board is that classical players don't seem to care much about the board edge and it's not one of the places that gets decorated traditionally on a classical guitar. Players are infinitely more concerned with neck width, scale length, volume, tone, volume etc. Unlike steel string players they're not wrapping their thumbs around the bass edge etc. and in fact most barely even contact the fretboard edges during play.
I do think a good feel is important and I've attracted some clients with a nicely contoured neck (not the traditional Ramirez 2X4 shape) and the fretboard edges radiused similar to a steel string along with a less traditional fret end shape, folks like it but I'm not sure they know why.
Everyone seems to need dots, especially the pros but there's no agreement on exactly which ones.
If I were to put them in a spec guitar, it would probably be 5,7,9 as this is my most common request.
Go ahead and bind if you like, your success will be in that no one will notice it.

Personally, I like the look of fret ends in the raw and I know for a fact that some people would consider it faux paus but to each their own. I had a university student take one of my guitars to his professor to check it out and he wouldn't let him use it because I had one fret position marker in it. That's about as traditional as you can get, oh and I still put the one fret position marker in it too

So yeah some people would consider it blasphemous but some people are Luddites too

- I personally like the look of the fret ends showing on the FB side too

- I think most CG players don't care at all about this issue. Playability and sound are 1 trillion times more important.

- most CG players I know personally (amateurs excluded) use improvised position markers, usually 7th or 5 and 7th.

_________________
Build log

To increase the challenge of re-fretting, especially if slots need to be deepened?

Binding does look nice, but from a tech's view, unbound guitars to be easier to work on. As a result, we do charge less for unbound refretting.

I've been thinking about using small black mother of pearl markers for the top of my fretboards--will probably try it soon. With the right size and the right pieces of shell you could probably get pretty subtle.

_________________
Evan McCartney

Classicals are funny that way - apparently the best players won't buy a guitar WITH dots, but many add their own! :>) As a player I did the same: I added a dot of whiteout at 5 and 7. On the last two I built, I did install actual dots at 5 and 7. I used some 1/16" plastic rod from a hobby store - big enough to be seen, but small enough that it doesn't draw too much attention. Looks pretty good I think.

One more comment about the CA method: it can make for more finish touch-up work if you do a full re-fret. Of course fret wear is less with most classical players than steel-string, but it is something to keep in mind. If the guitar is for someone who wears frets out every couple years, then I might consider a bound fretboard, even though I otherwise prefer unbound. For the last classical I did that required a re-fret, I didn't do the CA fill trick, instead leaving the fret ends exposed to make fret work/touchup easier next time! As someone already said, most serious classical players could care less about the fret ends.

I have been inserting a 1.5 mm dot of bone or ivory at the 7th only. I did the same at 5, 7 and 10 on my first. I just make a little tiny dowel out of a saddle cut-off, drill a hole, stick it in, wick a tiny bit of CA, cut off flush, and sand down. It's very subtle, after FPing over it. So far, I have been using the same little ivory dowel for each one. Still have a little left.

_________________
Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Thanks for all the responses guys. I will go ahead and bind the fret board. I also intend to put a dot at the seventh fret. This guitar will be for me and I need the dot.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

I believe it's a personal preference.
So if you want it then do it .
There is NO need for it -just looks.

DOTS??
One that all players of my guitars love is the 17th fret-It's a high A .
It helps with over the body positioning -even with a cutaway.
I use a 1mm brass rod for that dot.
On the side of the F.B.
Mike

_________________
Mike Collins

So you can add binding without trimming the tangs ? I never considered that.

You'll need to trim the tangs if you want the fret to run edge-to-edge!

Not much demand for that one on a classical!

On one of my classicals I made a shallow hole with a nail punch at the 5th and 7th frets. I then filled the holes with "Wite Out" and wiped the excess with my finger. It took two applications but looks fine. This was a "workhorse" guitar that I use personally.

I've done both bound and unbound fingerboards, but I like to use some dots. I just do 5, 7, and 9, and I use thin copper wire or nails. As has been pointed out most players don't care that much, but some do.

_________________
Expectation is the source of all misery; comparison the thief of joy.
http://redrivercanoe.ca/

from a re-fret point of view, bound boards I find much easier. Anything that avoids finish issues Is a blessing . getting metal flush with finish that might be .003" thick is hard to do fast enough to make money.

I guess I didn't make this very clear.
I find that gluing the binding on the fingerboard and doing a bit of glue cleanup takes very little time. It's cutting the frets and trimming back the tang the right amount that add time over just setting full-length frets.
If you are planning on filling with dust and CA, you have to trim back the tangs, so have not gained much time over a 'full' binding job.

I also didn't think about the Gibson (?) style binding which is added outside the frets and shaped to match the fret profiles.
I never 'got' that idea at all.

Cheers
John

John, have you seen the fret tang removal tool from LMI? It saves TONS of time. I picked one up at the GAL conference a couple years back and now wouldn't part with it for love or money. No messing around with tang trimming nibblers, just shove the fret wire into the hole to the depth you want (you can rig up a stop if you're ingenious), then have at it with a few strokes of a file and you're done. Easy peasy.

Cheers,
Dave F.

_________________
Cambrian Guitars

"There goes Mister Tic-Tac out the back with some bric-brac from the knick-knack rack"