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How do you handle wooden binding around a horn with a very small radius? What's the smallest radius you think is practical for wooden binding?

I did an EVH-style guitar, bound in curly maple. The horns on that guitar are about my limit, but I didn't use any SuperSoft or anything like that. Someone else may be able to bend tighter radii.

I went with two layers of maple, each about .040 thick, I think. I forget exactly, but I kept on thinning my test pieces until they bent nicely.

Maybe what I'll do is hit up my local mentor for a lesson on bending binding. I'll bring one of my patterns and well see if we can get it to conform. I decided that I really just don't like plastic binding...not for any deep reason but it's just my preference. On the last one I made, I couldn't get wood to work for me so I just reshaped the body to remove the binding channel and went with no binding at all. It looks nice, but there's just something missing.

What's missing is my technique. LOL.

Chris: do you mask the binding when you shoot color? I've done wood binding on acoustics, but I've never applied any color so I'm not sure how to handle it. I'm assuming that it doesn't just scrape off like it wood on plastic binding.....does it?

I can't believe I pulled this off,
but I bent a bloodwood binding at about .050",
at about a 1" radius,
and that bloodwood had some serious runout.
Took two tries.

I just saw Chris' video on bending binding. I'm going to try backing it with a tape like he does. I've tried with my bending slats, but they're rather large and inconvenient. It never occurred to me to use a cheap measuring tape. That may get me over the top.

The one that keeps getting me is the tight, lower horn in my avatar. Maybe I should just give up on the figured maple for the moment and just try something easier.

Try maple,
then try rosewood.

Glad THAT'S settled....


I just picked up a cheap little ruler so I can try that for a backing, Chris. I really think that's going to fix up my problem.

Well, it's taken the better part of a year playing on and off with a technique to do this, but I can finally report success! I don't know how tight that lower horn it, but it is very tight...much tighter than my bending iron, actually. I'm finally able to do it using this technique:

1) thin the wood down to about .40" or .45 (for a .80 binding channel)
2) perform the bend as tight as I can get it on the iron
3) flip it over and finish the bend free hand....very carefully...heating the outside of the curve...there's no way for me to heat the inside of the curve on my iron
4) use two pieces of binding to get the width I want, or use other veneers to take up the room.

That actually works. I'm not able to get anything appreciably thicker to work. It means bending binding twice for each guitar, but that's OK. The plus side to all of this is normal wood bending is not particularly intimidating anymore. There's also the added advantage that the lamination helps keep the binding stable when I cut through it for the neck pocket.

So I'm finally happy, and thanks to everyone for their help and advice. I do wonder if anyone could get a full sized piece to make the bend. It almost seems like I'm just asking the wood fibers on the outside of the bend to go beyond what they want to do because the radius is so tight and it basically makes a full 180 degree turn. Getting one piece to bend is still the hole grail for me, but I'm satisfied with multiple pieces for the time being.

Thanks again.

Another trick for this is to make an undersized male and a female forms out of mdf. You bend by hand to close enough on the barrel of a hot air gun, place the male form upright in a vice and drape a silicon heat blanket over it. You then work the piece down with the female form onto the male. You should find that the blanket will keep contact with the piece through most of the process but it is still a matter of working through the bend gradually to bring the forms together. Will this burn out your blanket with so much of it hanging loose in the air and nothing to sink the heat??? Not been my experience but then I have a PID controller so the temp can be set as required. That said I have seen this done without a controller and it had no ill affect. That silicone is pretty good stuff as far as heat goes and all the wire inside is fully supported so its hard to imagine why it would cause a problem.

Cheers

Kim