Luthier Tips du Jour - Installing bindings and purflings 

Thanks for posting this is very helpful to me 👍🏼

just glued in top binding. both parts fit glue up okay. after binding with masking and twill tape noticed fine space at one edge.....several more strip's of masking tape tightened the space before it dried. so a quick inspection after tying up binding is a good idea. slide show updated shortly. mike

Just bent strips of rosewood to bind my first build a flamenco style guitar. This lesson is a welcome review. Project has taken a year but a real skill builder. Thanks Robert and LMI.

@MaidenFan24568 If the bindings are wood yes. If they are plastic or ivoroid then a different glue is used and it is not really necessary to wrap the guitar

@mandaltby I did that for man years. It was a bit tougher for some of my students so I went to the butt joint and have never had a problem with it separating. It is easier to do too.

nice!, helped me a lot, by the way, great song choose.

Thank you. I also give classes and workshops on the road. Get a group together and let me know when to sow up.

Hi Robert: Great video as usual! I was wondering how you prebent the wood bindings prior to installing. I am building my first guitar & am at the binding stage now. I ordered some Maple wood binding from SM that has the purfling attached already. I used a PVC pipe closed off at one end & put the bindings in the pipe using steam to heat & wet the bindings in order to prebend them prior to glue up. However, I still had breakage of the bindings at the bend of the upper bout. Any advice before I have to turn the guitar over to do the top bindings? And I thought that this was going to be easy! Thanks for your advice, Steve

This is my job this week.

Hmm...do wood bindings need to be bent to perfectly match the instrument shape before installing? Or are they flexible enough for the twill tape to remove any gaps?

@yestragitaarbouw Yes, cocobolo and koa, nice huh?

did you use plastic purfling or wood purfling?

sizes run from 3/8 up to 2". What size do you use?

What kind of twill? Heavy weight? Light weight? Just glued a walnut binding on this morning. Nicely bent, but dang I could have used some extra umph in my taping. Traditional clamps didn't help much.

Do you have a video for ABS plastic binding and what type of glue you would use?

Hey, What glue should I use to glue the binding of a lespaul guitar, I'm changing the binding of the neck and body, I use Titebond 3 or even other glue?

There is some flexibility with wooden bindings if they are not bent perfectly to match the bindings channels. However, the better the fit the better you binding job will turn out. Make everything fit well before getting out the glue bottle.

Great video. Thanks Robert. I am about to start thinking about the binding on my Archtop build. Let me ask you this. Is all this information the same if I am going to use plastic binding ? Is one easier than the other i.e plastic or wood ? This is not only my first guitar, but my first woodworking project ever !

Heavy duty , one inch wide

Just installed my first section of binding and perfling on a ukulele I'm building, and it went well, but there are some small gaps here and there. What do you suggest I use to fill them? The wood is mahogany and I'm planning on using some mahogany colored grain filler to seal it. Will that do the trick in filling the little gaps? Or do you suggest another method?

Im a finish carpenter, and wonder why don't you cut the binding at a 45 at the seam that way it will never separate. Just wondering ..amazing work man

hi, i want to install plastic binding to my burns tr2 guitar refurbishment, what glue would you suggest,

By hi tech device do you mean my finger for spreading the glue lol

Did you ever have a shop in Boulder upstairs off of Pearl street?

Can you repair a crack in a corner of an acoustic guitar with epoxy glue ? I just bought a $1500 Alvarez guitar for $400 it is damaged due to a fall . I would like to try to fix it . Home Depot should be my source of materials.

I wouldn't say it affects tone on a solid body. At least I don't think my ear could hear the difference.

brasileirinho?

haha high tech glue spreading device :p