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Pat I use the small size pictured in the pic below. When in place clamping linings they are very nearly all the way open and perfect for triangular linings and reversed kerf linings too. If you bend your sides at .150 think all bets are off..... and yes I know a builder who uses single sides .150 thick.....

I never had rust issues with my clamps but I did get some black paint coming off them onto the linings in a few places but that sanded off lickety, split. They apply more clamping pressure than any clothes pin arrangement that I ever tried. The purpose made lining clamps, the aluminum ones that were offered on this forum some years back I had too but didn't think that they applied as much pressure as the binder clips, they cost WAY more...., and getting the surgical tubing over the clamps and installed correctly was a royal pain in the butt....

I dropped by Home Depot on my way home from work on Wednesday. They already had Black Friday items on display. I got 3 packages of a dozen spring clams for 9.99 a pack. Less than $30 for 36 clamps seemed good.

Yeah, it's like those binder clamps were custom made for this application.

Two things:

First I found a pic of the clips in use and posted it below.

Next here is a tip for some of the newer builders that may save you time and effort.

When we profile the sides/rim in a radius dish it's way easier to do so in a bit of a sequential order:

1) Sand the sides in the dish PRIOR to installing the linings. Get everything where you want it.
2) Install the linings about 1/64th" proud of the profiled sides and return to the dish.
3) This time we are only sanding the linings, not the sides, until we make contact with the sides. Less wood to sand though makes it faster and easier. The 1/64th" proud installation of the linings is so that the dish can impart the radius to them, whatever back or top radius you use without needing to take more side material.

Like the Martin factory I use clothes pins and an occasional spring clamp -- I have gone to bamboo CP's which are very strong and will not crack when a high tech rubber band is added to increase clamping force. As a side bar note that the rim "is not" in a mold for the ribbon lining installation. I believe Dick Boak has been quoted in a couple of videos saying "spring clothes pins have been found to be the perfect tool for this job"

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

I bought my spring-clamps at Dollarama for ten for a dollar. I have a set of thirty and have used them for ten years. I would expect you could find them at Harbor Freight.
For the lower-kerfing, I use bamboo-chopsticks (still-joined) with elastic bands around them.

Bob

What is lower kerfing?

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Binder clips till I moved to solid linings, then the cheap Lee Valley plastic spring clamps because I sometimes needed some more force.

Steve

It should also be said that in the Martin pic, which is very cool by the way thanks Ken, Martin is not typically installing wood bindings. Instead these days it's pl*stic which is way more flexible and conforming than wood bindings. The cement used for plastic bindings is not as dependent on perfect fit as some wood glues are and HHG certainly is.

Clothes pins are fine, as per the Martin pic, for pl*stic bindings but for wood I would have concerns that the clamping pressure may not be there. I always installed my wood bindings with Titebond meaning that wood to wood clamping and fitting requirements came very much into play. The binder clips have enough pressure for wood to wood and I never had any issues.

Lots of folks on this forum learned to use tape and CA for bindings. I never bought into that practice and had concerns about CA use for bindings especially when CA fails in sheer often enough and the very nature of bindings is to sustain an edge blow without further damage to the instrument.

Back before someone who is a real-deal Luthier (and a good guy!) got pissed off and stopped participating he posted that he had a CA joint for bindings fail and a long segment of bindings came off very cleanly with no wood fibers being torn. That concerned me too about CA use for bindings.

I understand this is not something that many here who use CA for bindings want to hear. Sorry.

I am confused (easy to do) but the photos and some where I have a video is of the guy installing traditional triangular wood ribbon linings -- not bindings.

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Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

You're good Ken, I'm the one who got confused. This thread is about linings not bindings..... duuuuh, got it....

But like I mentioned earlier, don't you think that if cloths pins with rubbers on them are not strong enough for kerfed linings then the kerfs are not deep enough? When I make kerfed linings they are very very flexible, almost like individual tentellones with a thin web between them.

Sorry it took me so long. Here you go.


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