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Barry,

This is the Stew Mac tape (LMI is pretty much identical). I wouldn't be without it and I haven't found anything as good in the UK (come see my trial tapes pile ).

On the top you will need something to stop the fibre tearout. I use the ready made Liberon blond. I can buy it locally but Axminster does it mail order. Just wipe it on with kitchen towel. It sands off later.

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

Excellent.
I will get some ASAP then dry fit the bindings and then post the pics on here in a day or too.

I will post some pics of my fret board in a few mins

Ok here are some pics

Me shootin in the garden....yeah its cold all right



This is the 'wave' curves my wife came up with. I am from Plymouth originally and i love the sea..a lot!



The peghead etc



I think i have doen well with my first go but then again.....




Nasty tear out #1




Nasty tear out #2




But it still looks good
snood39110.6534375

Cheers bud

...Its Barry by the way

Hehehehe no worries dude

Barry,

I'm pretty new to guitar building and have 2 kits under my belt and I have a question about the tear out as I'm about to route binding channels in my redwood top and bloodwood sides. Did you follow the directional arrows provided by StewMac? I'm not sure what page it's on but they show starting in certain areas and directions then proceeding to a complete counter clock wise direction (do the clocks go the same way in England? ) for clean up?

I know how easy it is to slip up get some pretty bad dings and divots so I was wondering if there was a reason you could point to that caused the tear out to help the rest of us avoid it.

Thanks

Larry

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Larry,

I followed the Stewmac instrcutions closely.
I think it happened because I am using a dremmel pro with a stewmac precision guide addon.

I think the Dremel is not powerful enough (as Dave White says above 'it is not powerful enough to provide a consistent cut).

I was reluctant to shell out for a laminate trimmer as its my first build.

I also perhaps didnt creep up on the cut enought. this is what i did.

1 x shallow reverse (climb) cut
1 x shallow normal cut (clockwise)
1 x full depth cut


I guess in hindsight using a Dremel one should do what i have done above but with more iterations creeping up on the full depth.

To be fair though the tear out occured on the 1st shallow climb cut :(

Maybe the wood is gash?
Its A grade sitka according to Stewmac.

HTH

Barry
snood39110.7023726852

Barry-
An alternative or addition to tape for gluing bindings is either cord (traditional) or lengths of rubber -either surgical tubing or strips cut from old inner tubes (just cut in a helical pattern and you will get many feet from a car/truck tube- if you can still find such a thing).
I usually use tape and then wrap with rubber for 'insurance'- probably overkill but sometimes the wood bindings need a bit of extra 'encouragement'- that's why the factories use plastic, I guess.
The only caution with the inner tube sections is to try to get them as clean as possible to avoid marks on the instrument. Sealing the top is a good idea in any case.
Don't worry about the chips and divots- we've all been there- just push on and the 2nd one will be easier.
Cheers

John

[QUOTE=Hesh1956] Barry if you use purfing, something like a herringbone perhaps or what ever you like, it will cover up the vast majority of the tearout. Just a thought.[/QUOTE]


Hesh I have thought of this but the the prospect of more tear out scares me to death. I think i would be more comfortable with a clean up operation if people think that this is ok.

Barry

[QUOTE=JohnAbercrombie] Barry-
An alternative or addition to tape for gluing bindings is either cord (traditional) or lengths of rubber -either surgical tubing or strips cut from old inner tubes (just cut in a helical pattern and you will get many feet from a car/truck tube- if you can still find such a thing).
I usually use tape and then wrap with rubber for 'insurance'- probably overkill but sometimes the wood bindings need a bit of extra 'encouragement'- that's why the factories use plastic, I guess.
The only caution with the inner tube sections is to try to get them as clean as possible to avoid marks on the instrument. Sealing the top is a good idea in any case.
Don't worry about the chips and divots- we've all been there- just push on and the 2nd one will be easier.
Cheers

John
[/QUOTE]

John,
I totally take on board what you say regarding backing up with rubber. I will use tape and then back up with rubber.

I have low tack taped the bindings to the sides of the guitar body overnight to 'pre bend' them. I did this with the bindings dry.
Do you think I should do this more vigorously, i.e. with wet bindings, shellac the top and then tape and rubber bind the lot up propper over night?

I think I will get some more sitka from stewmac (asked them for an off cut) and make repairs. I dont really want to do anymore routing. I think I have developed a routing fobia

Barry,

First off - thanks for posting the pics, it's looking good so far. The curvy fretboard looks really nice. It's great making your own but when you are doing it as "a team" with your wife taking an active interest it's even better.

With the binding set up you have for a first attempt that's not bad at all. To me, the top damage doesn't look like tearout, but more likely is when the dremel slipped back slightly as you cut - the opposite of what happened to your bottom of channel bevels. It could be covered by routing some purfling channels as Hesh says, but I suspect you are right and there is the risk that you will create more problems with the dremel than you solve. This is why if you are going to build more than one (my name is Barry and I'm a guitar buildaholic . . .) then pretty soon it will pay to buy a laminate trimmer and build yourself something like the Fleischman-Williams binding jig. In effect this keeps the bit at the right releative position and minimises slips and chips.

There are creative ways out of this that can be done by hand - although inlaying into spruce is a little tricky, and it is easier if you have experience of making templates and using lam trimmers. Here's one "recovery" I did for a young Irish musician I made a guitar-bouzouki for at cost of materials when I accidentally dropped the body and it took an edge chumk out:

Before:



After:



It became the top of a pint of Guiness

Again you are very welcome to bring the guitar over and we can see what we can do using my binding-jig set up.Dave White39110.733587963

_________________
Dave White
De Faoite Stringed Instruments
". . . the one thing a machine just can't do is give you character and personalities and sometimes that comes with flaws, but it always comes with humanity" Monty Don talking about hand weaving, "Mastercrafts", Weaving, BBC March 2010

It's the old adage; one of the best kept luthier's secrets is how to hide the mistakes. Well done, Dave!!!

Barry, I route all my binding channels using a Dremmel XP Pro and the StewMac Pecision base and have had very few problems. I use the binding bit also from StewMac for the Dremmel as well. I have never built a guitar without soundboard purfling, which I cut first, maybe that is why I have not had any problems, since I am taking some meat off the binding channel with more than one ledge and doing the smaller, shallower first. I have done a depth adjustment and cut 50% on the first pass, adjusted and cut to desired depth on a couple of WRC topped guitars which seems to want to tearout more easily. I also take it pretty slow.

Everything looks good, it will be a really nice guitar and these types of things are fixable.

Mike

[QUOTE=Dave White] Barry,

First off - thanks for posting the pics, it's looking good so far. The curvy fretboard looks really nice. It's great making your own but when you are doing it as "a team" with your wife taking an active interest it's even better.

With the binding set up you have for a first attempt that's not bad at all. To me, the top damage doesn't look like tearout, but more likely is when the dremel slipped back slightly as you cut - the opposite of what happened to your bottom of channel bevels. It could be covered by routing some purfling channels as Hesh says, but I suspect you are right and there is the risk that you will create more problems with the dremel than you solve. This is why if you are going to build more than one (my name is Barry and I'm a guitar buildaholic . . .) then pretty soon it will pay to buy a laminate trimmer and build yourself something like the Fleischman-Williams binding jig. In effect this keeps the bit at the right releative position and minimises slips and chips.

There are creative ways out of this that can be done by hand - although inlaying into spruce is a little tricky, and it is easier if you have experience of making templates and using lam trimmers. Here's one "recovery" I did for a young Irish musician I made a guitar-bouzouki for at cost of materials when I accidentally dropped the body and it took an edge chumk out:

Before:



After:



It became the top of a pint of Guiness

Again you are very welcome to bring the guitar over and we can see what we can do using my binding-jig set up.[/QUOTE]


Thanks Dave.
I would love to bring it over but arranging a date may be tricky in the next 3 wks or so.

Can you explain the repair in you pics it is not clear for me.

Barry.

Also it would be great to have your opinion on a clearly defined way forward for me baring in mind my setup and experience.

Barry.

[QUOTE=MSpencer] Barry, I route all my binding channels using a Dremmel XP Pro and the StewMac Pecision base and have had very few problems. I use the binding bit also from StewMac for the Dremmel as well. I have never built a guitar without soundboard purfling, which I cut first, maybe that is why I have not had any problems, since I am taking some meat off the binding channel with more than one ledge and doing the smaller, shallower first. I have done a depth adjustment and cut 50% on the first pass, adjusted and cut to desired depth on a couple of WRC topped guitars which seems to want to tearout more easily. I also take it pretty slow.

Everything looks good, it will be a really nice guitar and these types of things are fixable.

Mike[/QUOTE]

Cheers Mike,
I am pretty chilled out now post major panic. I think it will look cool in the end. I have really learnt to go slow alright

Also I do not have the precision base. If i did I would have made a 5 degree wedge to keep the router bit upright when doing the neck end on the backside

I have the binding router guide and the binding router bit from stewmac all attached to my Dremel pro.

A picture of the guide is shown below from the Stewmac website

Barry

[QUOTE=snood]


I have low tack taped the bindings to the sides of the guitar body overnight to 'pre bend' them. I did this with the bindings dry.
Do you think I should do this more vigorously, i.e. with wet bindings, shellac the top and then tape and rubber bind the lot up propper over night?

[/QUOTE]
If the bindings conform to the ledge with only tape to pull them in place you are doing just fine. If they don't, I'd (re?)bend them on an iron or bending jig if you have one so that they are a reasonable fit. You can even make small corrections with just a very damp rag and a steam iron (or wallpaper steamer!) for heat, and bending in your hands. It just depends on what you have around the shop.
I'd be careful about getting wet bindings near the guitar, as you could get stains- depending on the woods involved.
Lots of checking before you glue is a good idea. On my first guitar I left the bindings 'too proud' (ledge not deep enough) and ended up scraping a lot away, leaving skinny bindings. Nobody else seemed to notice, though- which is my experience in general...most folks will be so amazed that you built a guitar at all that they won't be very critical of mistakes which seem a big deal to you.
Don't be intimidated by the extremely fine craftsmanship that you often see here (not from me!). There are some real experts helping us out on OLF and other sites..
Cheers

John

[QUOTE=snood] [QUOTE=MSpencer] Barry, I route all my binding channels using a Dremmel XP Pro and the StewMac Pecision base and have had very few problems. I use the binding bit also from StewMac for the Dremmel as well. I have never built a guitar without soundboard purfling, which I cut first, maybe that is why I have not had any problems, since I am taking some meat off the binding channel with more than one ledge and doing the smaller, shallower first. I have done a depth adjustment and cut 50% on the first pass, adjusted and cut to desired depth on a couple of WRC topped guitars which seems to want to tearout more easily. I also take it pretty slow.

Everything looks good, it will be a really nice guitar and these types of things are fixable.

Mike[/QUOTE]

Cheers Mike,
I am pretty chilled out now post major panic. I think it will look cool in the end. I have really learnt to go slow alright

Also I do not have the precision base. If i did I would have made a 5 degree wedge to keep the router bit upright when doing the neck end on the backside

I have the binding router guide and the binding router bit from stewmac all attached to my Dremel pro.

A picture of the guide is shown below from the Stewmac website

Barry

[/QUOTE]

Barry, That Dremel attachment is the single WORST Luthier tool I have ever used. Others may have more skills than I but I COULD NOT control that thing to save my life. Went and bought a Bosch Colt lam trimmer within an hour of using that thing.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

[QUOTE=LarryH]Barry, That Dremel attachment is the single WORST Luthier tool I have ever used.[/QUOTE]

I agree, get something else. I have one of those gathering dust in the shop somewhere, used it once and will never use it again unless I can think of something other than binding to use it for.

_________________
Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

Looking good so far Barry and welcome to the OLF!

My first guitar was routed with a Dremel and i can assure you that i broke my piggy bank to get me a laminate trimmer for guitar no 2, the dremel has been sitting in it's case for 2 years now, i will probably use it one day but only for inlaying stuff if i find the courage!

I never regretted the purchase and my PC 7310 is one of my favorite tools in my shop now!

Good luck with the repair, it will only help you become a better builder, as you can see, you are not alone to whom it happened!

Cheers

Serge

Barry, I agree with the other guys, that tool is very hard to use with any consistency, I purchased one and hated it. The Precision Router Base is something different and has a binding guide that attaches to the base along with the dremmel. It gives you a small platform. It also has micro adjustments and much easier to handle. SteMac Item # 5263 is the set.

Mike

Cool

Thanks to everyone who has posted information in this post. You are all very helpful and it is very much appreciated.

barry

hey snood / larry,

its looking good dude. how's about scoring round the edge so that when you route it reduces the tear out?

 ie with a new scalpel - deep score (taking time and not having the shakes after drunken UFC in the garden  ) that way the tear out ends where it meats the transverse scalpel line

 

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