Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi

Tried bending ripple sycamore binding..again with poor equipment and had one snap and one crack

Thinking might be more cost effective and less stressful to use plastic version
I know wood binding is better but until i can afford to spend on better bending gear plastics are gonna have to be used

Can anyone recommend a good plastic binding that doesn't look cheap
The stuff on ebay is a minefield of good/bad. . Nothing blingy

Cheers

just plain white/black/cream will do.... sometimes less is more.

My trouble with wood binding isn't bending them. I've been able to bend it fairly well with a bending iron. My trouble is putting them on. The wood ones refuses to fit properly and would often require a huge amount of force before it will come together without significant gap. I think plastic ought to be much easier to deal with. Gaps in plastic (especially plain plastic) binding is also very easy to fill in invisibly.

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Getting wood binding that is too thick or too tall to follow the normal 15' radius back curvature can be troublesome -- bending a tight waist is challenging also. Plastic can look good and just may be a good idea for a first or second build. I would not mess around with the stuff on Ebay in an effort to save a buck or two. Buy from Lmii or SM.

_________________
Ken Cierp

http://www.kennethmichaelguitars.com/

Plastic is easy. Black looks about the same as ebony even side by side unless the ebony has some brown in it. Wood binding takes more practice to get right - the key is bending it so it fits well enough.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Have a look here.
http://www.rothkoandfrost.com/binding-and-purfling-materials/
I've used their tortoiseshell and it was fine.
A little warm up with a hair drier and they become very compliant.

_________________
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.

I used sycamore binding on my second guitar. I bent it on a hot pipe and it was a bit tricky to do it without cracking or breaking it. I've bound two guitars with tortoise celluloid binding and it was very easy and there were no gaps.

If you decided to use some type of celluloid binding, be sure that you place an order more than you think you need so that you don't run short and have to place a second order for just one or two pieces. Celluloid is classified as a hazardous material for shipping purposes and there is a fixed charge of almost $30 that is added on top of the normal shipping charge. You only want to pay that once.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Great website that colin.. cant believe it never came up on any searches before .. cheers

I originally found them on ebay, and then bought directly from their website, stuff seems like reasonably good quality if sometimes a little more expensive.
They don't come up on google until page 8 when searching for "luthier supplies uk"

_________________
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.

Wood binding is def a difficult thing. Because of that, it's why u see it in custom builds like we do here. After 20 builds I still struggle with it. Clamps and cauls special built for the application. And patience. I wish there was an easy answer, but I haven't found it.

Glad its not just me... i didnt give it a thought ..just assumed it was a straightforward stage as its so much smaller than bending the sides.. i now know differently
Cheers

All binding materials have there own advantages and disadvantages. I don't like plastic and prefer to use wood or fiber for binding. Like Steve said about wood binding " the key is bending it so it fits well enough " that is the best way to get a good result. If the binding is bent to fit exactly, the glue up goes easy. Having a good way to bend the binding is important, and with some practice it isn't too time consuming. Plastic is great for binding and is easy to bend and fit but I don't like to work with it or the glues for it. If I want black and white I use fiber veneer cut in strips low cost and easy to bend.

_________________
http://www.cushmanguitars.com/.

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way.
Mark Twain

I've learned the trick for wood is spend a lot of time dry fitting.
A little back cut on the narrow edge where it meets the body,
and the special heavy duty masking tape from LMI.
I actually like the look of wood or plastic the same.
My next build will have tortoise shell plastic from LMI.
LMI has 2 types, and I will go with the more figured version.
Alan

If I had read this thread before my last one, I probably wouldn't have attempted the rosewood. I did have the problems mentioned here (bending to the exact right shape and holding it tight while drying). I ended up with a couple of gaps (gap between back and binding, and also binding rising in the channel leaving a gap underneath). I filled these with dust and CA, and I have to point them out for anyone else to see them. The instrument was only for me, so not a big problem. Funny how, when you're an amateur, you just launch launch into things some people think are hard (like fanned frets). When you're starting out, it all seems equally hard.

A clamping jig works great for wood and plastic.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

That's interesting. How exactly do you use that to bend wood binding?

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Unlike apparently almost everyone else on this forum, I often prefer the looks of plastic binding, at least on a steel string guitar.

Difficultly for me is 6 of one, half dozen of the other. Wood has to be bent more precisely, but it's easier to scrape down than plastic.

The whole hand built guitar thing seems to have started (at least in the USA) mostly in the 70s, in a time where building a wooden camper shell for your pickup truck was normal. Hence wood bindings for hand-built guitars became the norm. Back to nature man. That's my theory anyway.

Thats intresting jig dzsmith.. how do you soften the wood or is it for after you have shaped it

Sorry, the jig is used for drying / cooling the bent binding so it retains it's shape.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

That's similar to my jig for gluing solid linings, Dan. If you were to make two piece bindings, and glue them together in that jig, it would keep it's shape without spring back.

Alex

_________________
"Indecision is the key to flexibility" .... Bumper sticker

I've done one plastic binding. Heating and forming it was easy.
Gluing was a mess.
I used Weldon #16.
What works better?

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah

CA works well

_________________
Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

I don't know about the bindings made of plastics like ABS, but if you ever consider using tortoise celluloid binding, it can be glued on without any of the Weldon type glues. Tortoise celluloid binding is a bit of a special case of plastic binding because of the transparent/translucent patches in it. You need to have a veneer layer behind it that is the full height of the binding to provide uniform color to the transparent patches. Otherwise you would be able to see the transition from the lower edge of the top or back purfling to the wood of the side through the tortoise binding in places. At least for the lighter colored tortoise binding I've used.

I glue all four pieces of the binding to a sheet of white veneer which serves as a white line in the purfling scheme when seen from the top or bottom of the guitar. I wipe one side of the full length of a binding piece with acetone using a Q-tip and then apply and spread LMI glue on top of that. (I learned that trick from a post on this forum.) That piece is then placed on the veneer and the same done for the other three pieces. I clamp them to the bench top on wax paper under a board and then cut them out of the sheet using a razor blade after the glue is dry.

With the binding backed by the veneer layer, you don't have to use Duco or Weldon or any of those similar cements for plastic to glue the binding into the channel. LMI glue (or similar) works great. The binding is very flexible so no pre-bending is needed.

_________________
Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Wood binding is a process skill. Probably a good reason you don't see it much on big name guitars (without big prices). My experience is that it is very hard to explain or standardize. Keep it thin. Shape it well. Don't rush the tape up. Have lots of cauls and clamps available. Tune with a heat pipe. Seriously, how do you write a step by step recipe for this? Same with bevels, as I have learned. Do it enough times and it will reveal itself. Thin seems to be key.

I used to be a fiber fan until I saw how it would edge blush. Widen. This can be minimized with proper scraping. But once widened, its hard to reverse.

Wood binding became much easier when I reduced thickness to 0.060". Even ebony is no longer a battle. Careful dry-fitting is still essential.

_________________
Doug

Don't let fear or common sense stop you from trying to build something

I did my first Mesquite binding.
I tried many bending techniques. What worked for me was to wipe the binding with a wet rag, lay the wet rag on the hot pipe, use a thin piece of tin as a backer, and bend.
I planed and sanded the binding down to 0.07" thick. This was a lot of work.
I discovered the binding needs to be completely dry before gluing with Titebond.
One thing I will do in the future is to clean up the binding channel before gluing.

_________________
wah
Wah-wah-wah-wah
Wah