Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a Martin here that got left in a hot car and the binding has all come loose. My first thought is to rebind it since the binding has srunk enough that has to be pulled TIGHT to get it back into the rabbets. However, I'm unclear as to how to get the binding under the neck. I can pull the neck but I would rather not. Any tricks for this?
Jason

I use a hair dyer and heat the binding so it can restretch . I am sure there will be other helpful hints coming your way.

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John, good idea on the hair dryer.
Not wanting to high jack this thread
but if the guitar got that hot wouldn't it have some glue joints that might fail also?

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Say what you do, Do what you say.

What John said, but not to much hea. A dryer wouldn't get or shouldn't need to be much hotter than what outside/or inside car would get to cause problem in first place. Boss showed me using a hot iron with some backing making a ping pong ball and some binding going poof and little fire. Lot of older and maybe newer Martins and other brands used cellulose and it is flammable at some point of heat. Not know the temp, but heat iron and some metal on it made a neat illustration and point was taken. Would check all of guitar if got that hot for other issues.

Oh, there are plenty of other issues. The bridge is coming up, the back has separated from the sides plus some cracks in the back. All that stuff I'm fine with, it's just if I have to replace the binding on the top. Getting under the neck has me scratching my head. Like I said, I can take the neck out but I really don't want to. It's a shame too because you can just tell this guitar just doesn't get taken care of. We should start a guitar foster care system.
Jason

Well jason....

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