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Chris's last thread about binding prompted me to start this thread.
I have a confusion in my head about binding that I'm hoping can be put straight.
The confusion is this: The back of the guitar has a lateral arch of an inch or so, the binding channel follows this arch. The bindings themselves are straight (from a side-on perspective). How can the straight bindings follow the arched back without gaps appearing?
I've found from experience that it's not a problem with very narrow lines but when the binding is quite wide gaps always appear around the waist, presumably as the binding is forced down into a curve it flexes out. I'm making a small tenor guitar and I made the lateral arch more extreme than normal. There's no way the bindings on the back are going to fit without nasty gaps. There's no problem on the top which, of course, doesn't have the lateral arch.
How does this work? How to resolve it? Is it just me? Am I making sense?

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.

Joe: Make sure your binding is not too tall. The cube rule applies to them also. If you rope your bindings instead of using tape you can really put the hurt on them as Todd suggests.
Tom

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A person who has never made a mistake has never made anything!!!

I did a guitar where the inner binding I wanted stood tall. I made a trillion little squares to aid in truing the tall binding. It worked in most spots. The key for me is Binding tape till my fingers scream. One tape down, one tape up, ,,,

Cool you are building a Tenor! What size? I just did this one over Christmas break. Its aTINY Regal size design/plan I got from Elderlys but I went X instead of ladder bracing.
Here is mine with a borrowed (its for sale) used Blueridge BR40T.

This was my best Binding job so far. Like I said, my fingers hurt for 2 days after putting the tape on
[img]http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n163/wcsg/Tenors%20and%20Oak%20Parlor/aDSCN3064.jpg[img]
[/img]http://i112.photobucket.com/albums/n163/wcsg/Tenors%20and%20Oak%20Parlor/aDSCN3069.jpg[/img]

After glue/before clean up.

Agreed, that's the single best thing you can do to help go around compound curves. I like the look too.

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http://www.chassonguitars.com

Thanks for replies.
The bindings I used were about 5/16 (8mm on my ruler) high. This is obviously pretty high. So you're saying if I split that into 3 strips about 3mm high I wouldn't have problems? Makes sense that cube rule!
Kitchen Guitars- your's looks great. I hope to post pictures of my build when it looks more presentable.

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We are all in the gutter but some of us are looking at guitars.