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With his teeth, no less!

Ha!

I saw this waiting to checkout at Rockler. Smart of them to have this at near the register. I haven't tried them yet, but there are different grits of abrasives and 20 in a pack for $3! Has to be useful for getting into corners, and other things. You could snap, or cut off used ends; they are about 6" long. Seems to be a nice combo of stiffness, and flexibility.

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Why be normal?

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I don't think that is true, at least I haven't seen it, and I design and build PCBs for a living. I have plenty of old rosin core solder that I use on PCBs all the time. I'll ask some of the other guys here.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Using a small suction cup will get glue into tight cracks too. I cut the ones off the back of the bath mat for that. I think StewMac sells about the same thing.

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I have 30 yr old solder and did this a long time. If you get balling up solder your too cold or the wrong flux. Now this is 60 40 tin lead not the new crap that may have a shelf live but I would never use solder if it had a shelf life that makes no sense to me I have seen there are some manufactures that say it but that may be legaleeze for liability.
what I find funny is soldering circuits that are 30 yrs old and that solder still flows I have to wonder if this is just a statement to sell more solder???

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

The roll I'm using right now, 44 Rosin Core, has a date on it, 11/26/96. The reason it's so old is that we had a ton of it from when we had many more employees. This stuff works great, nice shiny result. I think you had some other issue and would not make this claim. Of course ours is stored in an environment suitable for humans, maybe that's the difference.

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Hutch

Get the heck off the couch and go build a guitar!!!!

Before applying any finish or sealer check the instrument with a Cat Pee UV Flashlight Black Light. They are really handy and show up glue smears from most glues and a lot of other contaminates. Better still you could buy one for under $13.

I took a picture on an instrument I just bound for demonstration.



[img]$13%20at%20amazon,%20I%20am%20sure%20pet%20mart%20sells%20these%20as%20well.[/img]

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http://www.Harvestmoonguitars.com

Pipettes are great for this application - total control, minimal glue spread, and 100% pressure behind the glue. Since both are emulsive, a slightly thinned version is good for initial deeper penetration into the wood grain, followed by full strength glue which will take advantage of the thinned, wicked glue, and provide strength at the break.

I have a mod for my bending iron to help with the vertical bend of the binding we need at the waist, particularly on the back where I use quite a small radius dome. It helps to stop the binding from twisting.

As you can see it can be removed for ordinary use of the iron.
Dave

For those of you who French polish.

I find that brushing on 3-5 coats then lightly sanding back flat helps speed up the overall process. I also take the used brush and place it in a jar with alcohol in it and seal it all up with a ziplock bag between brush sessions. Then when you are done clean the brush up good and you have a very light cut mixture of shellac and alcohol for your final glaze coats.

Hope this one isn’t too obvious but here goes:

It’s common advice when binding a guitar to remove/scrape/sand off the inside lower corner of the binding so that the inside corner of the channel doesn’t interfere with a tight fit at the top.

My tip is that a utility blade can be angled and used to scrape out that inside corner on the guitar, to achieve the same effect but much faster and without any risk of having a lapse in concentration that results in accidentally sanding the wrong corner of the binding. Don’t laugh, it happened once to a guy I know …

Also, when doing final test fit for binding and purfs, it can be tricky with them still slightly proud of the channel to see any very small gaps. Things can look ok only to have these small gaps reveal themselves as you scrape flush after glue up.

So in addition to good lighting and magnification, you can do a final check by quickly running an appropriate size feeler gauge along the edges of the guitar with the binding taped in place, or along the join between binding and purfling etc. Very thin gauges will drop into gaps that you may have missed. I find a .006 works well.

I find I don’t always need to do this - just on some combinations of wood/binding/purfs where there’s less contrast to help me see the gaps.

Wow lots of great stuff here, thanks everyone and please keep the tips coming!

Dave, really good tip, and timely.
I've had the twist problem, especially with Bubinga bindings which seem to be very intractable, ever since I went to a smaller 12' radius on the back 3 guitars ago.
Much obliged for your post.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Thanks Colin, I certainly found it useful to get a better fit of my bindings.

The other thing was to bend them along with the sides at the same time in my bending machine. I always do a fairly sharp cutaway and that is really the only way to get them to conform to the sides.

Cheers Dave

Here’s a tip that I like - take apart a cheap combination square and use it to shave the binding when fitting for butt joints. Slide the binding through the slot where the ruler would be normally.




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Here is another tip - if putting binding and purfling on separately with CA, use a strip of HDPE as a binding proxy when placing the purfling. Tack the purfling, remove the HDPE strip and install binding as normal.




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Have thought about this but haven't tried it yet. I noticed 5 gal buckets and lids are made of HDPE. Cut them up for various things and the sides are precurved.

If you use the Sonicare toothbrush. When you replace the brush break the old one with a hammer and you'll find two fairly powerful magnets inside which can be used for repairs. Old Sonicare toothbrushes are also useful for cleaning metal objects in your shop.

I love my 3 roll tape deck from Stew Mac. It is a life saver when I am installing binding. However, it would tend to slide around on my work table, when I would try to pull off a strip of tape. Then I discovered the little hole in the back of the base of the tape deck. I drilled a few 3/16" holes into my table top and I insert a bridge pin through the hole in the deck and into one of the holes in the table top.

I use a lot of the cheap small artist brushes, with the tapered plastic handles. Glue clean up, touch up with stain, drop fills, etc., etc. When I am finished with one, I cut the brush off the tapered handle and save the handle for other uses. They are great as tapered index pins. I also use them to insert into the tip of the clear plastic condiment bottles that I keep my glue in. I can never find the little bottle cap, but I can always find one of these.

If you buy acetone, naphtha, mineral spirits, etc. in the little cans from Lowes with the plastic flip top, it is easier to work with if you insert a 3" or 4" piece of dowel into the hole to seal it. I just taper the end of the dowel a little so that it is easy to insert. Easy open, easy close. Those little plastic snap on caps are aggravating to operate. I usually cut them off to get them out of the way.

On my LMII binding router bit, the bearing is attached to the router bit with a small hex cap screw. In my case, it was really stuck. I twisted the hex wrench, to the point that it spiraled, and looked like a piece of licorice. Using a small diamond file, I filed a vertical flat on the head of the screw. Then, using a ruler held tightly against that flat, as a guide to make sure the flat to be filed opposite the finished flat was parallel to the existing flat, I filed it, fitting it for a very tight fit with a 4.5 mm wrench. It still took a lot of pressure, but once I heard a crack, it easily unscrewed. The cap screw is in good shape, and I could continue to use it.