22 Years?

That's a very long time when so much could have happened.

This is all hand waving & armchair analysis but I suspect plastic adhesives from 70 years ago had a lot of nasty stuff in them that are illegal now.

Kevin Looker

- CA holds anything, and is the quickest glue to use for the job - no waiting for solvent-based glues to dry and celluloid to shrink back. Most of our work uses CA these days.

- Celluloid glues well with Duco or IP-16

- ABS and ABS/PVC alloys (e.g., Bolteron) need the extra solvent power of IP-16 or similar - Duco is not hot enough, a it is just gelled acetone, versus the additional solvent package in glues made for those materials.

- Martin's recent issues with binding cements affected all of their binding materials - Bolteron, celluloid, and wood. While their glue was very similar to LMI's FCA (as is Taylor's adhesive), we were told that the formula was a little 'Greener', and eventually proved to be faulty. While the number of guitars showing issues is fairly small right now, it really does not take a very high percentage of delivered guitars to bury the Repair Department in binding work.

On adhesive content...celluloid is happy to glue with acetone...Martin never had issues keeping binding on their guitars until they switched to Bolteron in the 1960's (while continuing to use Duco as an adhesive). The issue with celluloid is the quality of the material and how well stabilized it is. Both Gretsch and Gibson have had problems over the years with bad materials, with mid-1960's Gretsch Country Gentlemen showing some truly horrific failures...nitric acid vapor from decomposition eating metal and causing a real mess.

A little goes a long way. It wicks best in tight fittings. It’s all I use but mine haven’t been around 25 years. Make sure it’s fresh. Once a bottle is open and exposed to air, it loses strength.

The "tape and wick in thin CA" method is what many people use for bindings, but with the right frame of mind you can do "apply the CA to the rebate and hold the binding in place while it sets" when doing flexible plastic bindings. Dusting the rebate with baking soda can speed the cure. By working short (and not so short) sections at a time you can avoid the hassle of placing and removing the tape, and by using a medium viscosity CA you can avoid some of the cleanup wicking the thin stuff in from the top can create.

https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/home ... celerator/

CA with mahogany can seal it and show under finish.
I use Duco cement or weldon
The more I do this the less I use CA

If you use CA for bindings/repair, wrap your thumb with a single layer of packing tape (Polypropylene)—it allows you to put pressure on the binding, sliding your thumb right along the binding without the risk of gluing yourself to the guitar.

You know that I know from first-hand experience.

You know that I know from first-hand experience.

I would love to just use the celluloid but the stuff is insanely expensive at this point.

For a binding scheme like this one it's around $160.including the hazmat fee and shipping...…..


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Last batch of Ivoriod I purchased from an outfit in the U.K. No hazmat

I would love to just use the celluloid but the stuff is insanely expensive at this point.

For a binding scheme like this one it's around $160.including the hazmat fee and shipping...…..


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If you use CA for bindings/repair, wrap your thumb with a single layer of packing tape (Polypropylene)—it allows you to put pressure on the binding, sliding your thumb right along the binding without the risk of gluing yourself to the guitar.

You know that I know from first-hand experience.

The added advantage of celluloid is it fails before the glue does.
I don't know if ABS/PVC plastic binding is any better than celluloid in the long run but the track record for celluloid is not that great. How long has ABS/PVC been used for bindings?




Now would that be the left hand or the right hand?