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Just out of curiosity what do you guys use to clean your plastic binding assuming you have used plastic bindings? I am about to start final sanding before finishing the guitar and the plastic bindings get kind of browned up by sanding over then along with the rosewood..

I am no expert but I just built one with plastic binding and used Naptha to clean. Worked great.

When you are done sanding these are scraped clean. There are a number of things you can use but I would recommend something with a stiff blade to prevent chatter. A small carvng knife used as a scraper will work or utility knife blade etc.

The tool...



I usually spray a coat of vinyl before scraping to keep dye, filler residue, etc. off the freshly scraped binding.

Excellent photo....!...note how he is using his thumbnail as a "stop" to keep the blade only on the plastic.
I find doing this and drawing the blade toward me gives the most control.

Thanks a lot guys I will use a razor then..

When I visited Gibson a few years back they were using glass Microscope slides to scrape bindings.

Fred

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Fred Tellier
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I believe broken glass in some form was used in "days of yore" by woodworkers as a scraper.
Prabably someone somewhere still using that as a method?

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Ahh yes the " days of Yore " I went to college then , we used broken glass for alot of stuff , course we drank all the beer before we broke the glass .

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lol!

I have a good friend who only uses broken window glass as a scrapper. He has been doing this for 40 years with excellent results, and has won over many converts.

Bob

When I went to the Gibson Custom shop 4 years ago they were using metal scrapers that they sharpened themselves to scrape the binding. The lady I spoke to who was doing it was 60 years old and said she'd been doing it the longest. She had a stash of metal strips and a sharpening stone. She scraped all the binding perfectly on a Les Paul right in front of me in about a minute and a half. She didn't even stop once she started scraping, all the way around the guitar.
I was fascinated, never having seen it done before or had it explained to me how it was done either.

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Old growth, shmold growth!

I used to use a frsh cut piece of glass to scraoe the finish for gluing a bridge ... then I saw Serge de JOnge use a chisel and I used that method for a couple years .. now I route it off with a mini die grinder and 1/8 inch bit .....

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Tony Karol
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"let my passion .. fulfill yours"