Official Luthiers Forum!

I just had a 10 year old "Goodman" archtop in the shop for a fret job and noticed that there was a certain amount of lacquer cracks at the point wherer the binding meets the wood.
There was more on the sides than the top and back.
While doing the fret job,I knocked a piece of the binding off.
So I was wondering if any of you guys and gals have noticed the same problem.
My older guitars with wood binding don't have this problem.

I find that ABS can be come brittle under lacquer...but not near as brittle as the older celulliod bindings found on the 50's guitars. I have done quite a bit of restoration on old guitars and celulliod has been much more difficult to work around. ABS seems to stay plyable for years in its raw form, but the nitro seems to dry it out some how. I can say I have never knocked off a chunk of ABS. I have loosend an end, or knocked off an entire side of the neck binding. But I have yet to see it break off in small pieces.

I have not seen any issues with wood bindings. I assume this is because you are glueing to "like" materials together. When glueing different materials together, there always seems to be a longevity issue with the bond.

YMMV
Joe

_________________
Joe

Thanks, Joe.
You have confirmed my observations.

I've noticed quite a variation in the ABS stock. Some of it is almost too brittle to bend sharply while other batches seem dead soft.