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Hello All,
Is there much difference between the difficulty of installing wood or man made bindings? If so, what would the differences be and what tips would you offer for installing each? Thanks.
tb

wood binding can be difficult for the first few times. I start at the tail and work to the neck block and use a bar clamp across at the waist . Also I break the sharp corned of wood binding that mates to the inside corner. Anything that holds off the binding can cause gapping .
I am sure you will see more advice coming. I also use tite bond for gluing on the binding.

John,
Titebond for both wood and man-made?

tb

Duco for plastic and tite bond for wood fiber and woods

You must bend the wood binding where a lot of man-made binding can be installed without bending. Probably the man-made binding protects the guitar better. Seems most custom builders go with real wood binding.

there are pitfalls to both . Most celluloid and acetate plastics will tend to shrink over time . ABS ( boltaron ) is a bit more stable . Plastic takes more shock than wood but you seldom have to reattach wood binding.

Yet another reason to get involved with the guys on this forum.
I would have thought Duco would attack plastics...deform them, kind of like a softening/melting effect.

tb

Darryl Young wrote:You must bend the wood binding where a lot of man-made binding can be installed without bending. Probably the man-made binding protects the guitar better. Seems most custom builders go with real wood binding.

Would it be necessary to use a heat pipe on wood binding or can it be bent adequately by wetting and bending and leaving to dry to shape in some sort of appropriate form?

tb

Duco and Titebond are good choices for the first few instruments. I like CA for tight curves and have actually found it pretty easy and "fast" for the entire jobs -- the channel must be sealed with lacquer if CA is used. I thin the wood bindings supplied in the KMG kits to about .070" -- they are pre-bent and at that dimension are fairly flexible, this is important when binding the back which has very complex curves. I do like the look of fiber -- note they are not as flexible as plastic -- the Titebond extended cure or another slow cure PVA is a good choice to give some added time to make sure all is tucked into position. Often over looked part of the process is to chamfer the inside lower edge of the binding itself to provide a little relief in case the channel ledge is not perfect.

Well, it probably depends on the type wood you use, the thickness, the radius of the curve, etc. In general, wood bindings are probably pre-bent on a pipe or bending maching of some type.

tommyboy wrote:

Darryl Young wrote:You must bend the wood binding where a lot of man-made binding can be installed without bending. Probably the man-made binding protects the guitar better. Seems most custom builders go with real wood binding.

Would it be necessary to use a heat pipe on wood binding or can it be bent adequately by wetting and bending and leaving to dry to shape in some sort of appropriate form?

tb