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Well in the last week I have had two guitars from the 60s come across my bench with binding issues. I know I have seen this lots on plastic bound instruments from these years, but I wanted some opinions on what to do. The binding is shrunk all around and is starting to let go in a few spots. My thinking was to wick CA into the small cracks that are forming between the binding and the guitar. How else would you go about dealing with this, apart from replacing the binding? Go here for pictures.

Thanks for you help.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Josh, have you tried checking frets.com? Seems like this would be something that Frank has dealt with a time or two. If you do decide to use CA be very careful around the existing finish.

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Dave Rector
Rector Guitars

if the binding is celluloid you can make virtually invisible welds using acetone. similarly you can dissolve binding material in acetone and patch in the liquid binding into the cracks. you will need to clean out the dirt in the cracks first. da or deionized water, or even hydrogen peroxide can be used for this. you may have to use some tint to get the new material to match the old.

ca would be the best bet for reattaching the waist binding. the other photo is problematic. where on the instrument is it. this almost looks like the side is bulging rather than the binding shrinking.

whilst not desirable, any ca on the lacquer will set clear and hard and can be scraped, sanded and polished.

Frank Ford has a great article on fixing this. He shows how to remove the binidng and then glue it back in place. I'm not sure the customer will be game for that so I think I will do my best with CA. Thanks for the tips guys.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

I repaired celluloid binding on a 50's Epi a few years back Josh - on one side , I was able to remove the binding up to the neck block from the waist with a razor blade, as it had already pulled off at the waist and thru the cutaway - the other side was only at the waist, and even a lot of hand pressure wouldnt put it back in place, so ... bring on the heat gun - mask off the surrounding areas, then slowly heat the binding at the waist area to soften it up a bit so it will stretch back into place, then tape it. Let cool, then wick in some CA carefully - it will leave a scar on lacquer that doesnt always come out.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks Tony for the tip about using heat. I had wondered about doing that. I have ruled out removing the binding on this one just becuase I don't think there is any reason to. The waist will pull back in with firm hand pressure so with a little heat and a clamp or tape to hold it there I think it will go back just fine.

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Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Like Tony, I use heat to make the binding to make the binding a little
softer and pliable so that I can stretch it back to position before glueing
it. BE VERY CAREFUL if you decide to do this. I did a whole lot of
experimenting on old parts guitars before putting the heat gun to a
customer's guitar. I found a very narrow window of safety. The binding
would start to soften and become pliable at around 81-83c. The finish
bubbles up and turns brown at about 85c. On my Makita heat gun (with
the infinite temp control) I found the sweet spot at about 1.4-1.5 on the
dial, and still blow on my thermocouple for a while to verify each time
before putting it to the guitar. That was also measured with a reducing
nozzle at a distance of about 1", so that's how it is used at the binding..

If you are really comfortable with your judgement you can do it by feel,
consantly feeling the binding and removing the heat as soon as it starts
to stretch. There would certainly be some risk involved in this method,
but if you actually know what you're feeling for you would essentially be
using the binding as your thermometer. Screw up though and you're
looking at some major finish work.

Another caution is to make sure the binding is heated very evenly along
the area to be stretched. If it get's too much warmer in one spot that the
rest, that spot can get stretched noticably thin.

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Eschew obfuscation, espouse elucidation.