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I chipped the outer FB binding. Besides leave it alone what options do I have?




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easy fix

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Assuming you lost the piece you can try to make one that fits closely or notch it out and fit a block in there using a scarf joint preferably. Don't be tempted to use CA. Use Titebond.

1.Assuming you don't have the original chip, you can clean up the chip-out with a chisel and make a new chip to fit. I probably would be using superglue for this with a little sanding while the glue was still wet. Superglue can be messy if you're not really familiar with it, and in that case Titebond might be safer.2. You can make a dam with masking tape and fill the chip-out with superglue and dust or dyes. Experiment to get a color match.If anything, you want the patch to be a little lighter in color than the desired end color. Light colors can be darkened with various coloring aids like magic markers, but colors that are too dark can not generally be easily lightened. If using superglue do it in a number of thin layers instead of 1 big glob.3. In some cases epoxy with dust and/or dyes and the tape dam can also be used. Depends a lot on the wood color. Good luck,-Bob

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I had the "opportunity" to fix a similar oops on one of my guitars that happened when I was cleaning the fret slots and slipped with the hook tool and blew out a similar sized piece of the binding. I fixed it with an approach similar to what jfmckenna suggested. I smoothed the chipped out spot to remove ragged features and make it into a smooth, flat surface to accept a small piece of left over binding cut with a sharp chisel to get smooth flat faces to glue into the chipped out spot. It took me several tries to get a piece that had a good fit. If you make that piece a bit larger than the chip out so that, after it's glued on, it stands slightly proud of the surrounding binding both on the top and the side of the binding, you can sand it flush and it will blend in nicely especially if you can match the grain and color of the existing binding. In my case, I used Titebond.

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