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Has anyone ever bent Richlite bindings? Just like wood?

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Pat

Just like wood if not easier.

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Thanks marcus! Did you just use the stuff they sell for cutting boards?

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Pat

I haven't used it since LMI stopped supplying it. I just bought the precut binding. I suspect they are the same tho!

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-Marcus
http://www.bailieguitars.com
Instagram | YouTube

Not an answer to your query, but you may want to take some care about ventilation when you do this. Although it appears that off gassing of heated phenol–formaldehyde resins at typical bending temperatures is mostly water vapor (see https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10346658/), it is the case that these resins when not fully cured off-gas formaldehyde.

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R.M. Mottola
LiutaioMottola.com

Author of the books Building the Steel String Acoustic Guitar and Mottola's Cyclopedic Dictionary of Lutherie Terms.

Be careful to know the difference between Richlight and Rocklight. If you do a search, you will find that they are different materials. When LMII was supplying a processed wood binding material, it was Rocklight Ebano. Richlight is some sort of paper and resin composite that, I think, is available in the US. As far as I know, it is less suitable for bending than Rocklight. Also as far as I know, Rocklight is no longer available in the US, though I would like to be shown wrong by someone. I recently looked and found a Canadian supplier, though the price is on the high side. My recollection is that it bends pretty well, and certainly more reliably than the commonly available West African Ebony. I just found four pieces of Rocklight bindings that I didn't know I had and will shortly be machine bending them. If it doesn't work out, I'll let you know.

Ok, so I was confusing the two. I noticed that LMI sells Richlite fretboards, so I assumed that the bindings they used to sell were the same. But sounds like that was Rocklite, which is not available in US now.

Salty, do you know someone who tried to bend Richlite?

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Pat

Rocklite is a breeze to bend, I can confirm.

I used the Rocklite bindings from LMI. Extremely easy to bend.

I just bent a set of Rocklight Ebano bindings for a tenor uke. As many of you may know, the waist bends on a uke are tight, more so than on a guitar except, possibly, in a cutaway. They came out of my bending machine just fine.

I can't say for sure if it's me or the wood but I've had miserable experiences lately with trying to bend ebony bindings. Too much run out, too many breaks. I'm fed up with throwing away expensive wood.

As far as I know, there is now no US supplier for Rocklight products. Fortunately, a Canadian company carries them and will ship to the US:

https://www.facebook.com/EdCoFineWoods

Highly recommended. They sent a bunch of bindings to me in bulletproof packaging via Canada Post, which hands off seamlessly to USPS for delivery here.