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Seems to me that plastic is the better edge protector. In reality, i have no idea how wood bindings hold up over time. I suspect that quartesawn faces will reduce the possibility of split out after a bump. I lean towards plastic and actually prefer the look.

What is the collective wisdom here?

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Hutch

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

Plastic has a lifetime. As the plasticizers evaporate, it gets brittle and shrinks or cracks. Some plastics last longer than others. Wood shows the bumps, but it doesn’t evaporate and crack. How long are you building for?

I've been building since the early 2000s. I started with F5 mandolins. Before all the hazmat stuff. I built a few of them and did some repairs for a friend that involved removing the back. I started my furst guitar about 6 years ago and just finished it this year. All plastic binding.

My current build has walnut bindings that i made myself.

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Hutch

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

There was a time when plastic was new and considered an exclusive and expensive material, but those times have passed. How many D'Angelicos are still in existence that haven't had to be re-bound due to shrinking, cracking, etc.?

With wood, the possibilities are limitless. For me, plastic cheapens an instrument.

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Richard,

If you like plastic, go for it, your call. I prefer real ebony bindings on my builds - I like the contrast.

M

PS Martin can’t seem to keep their plastic bindings from letting go at the waist on their newer instruments. I have no idea what percentage are failing. Maybe John Hall has that answer.

I am also in the wood binding camp. If you use plastic, just be sure to thoroughly scuff the inside face of the binding before glue up.

I use plastic for ukes sometimes. There are advantages, no pre-bending, jet black, etc… but see above for downsides.


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I have some 20 year old celluloid bindings on my instruments that have yet to fail. I don't know what Martin is doing wrong. I hope the figure it out.

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Hutch

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

So the function of the bindings is to absorb a bump and not pass on any damage to the rest of the instrument. What they looked like was secondary to the function originally and still....

Like many of you I thought that plastic bindings cheapened an instrument too. That is until I became a repair person.

All my Heshtones had and have wood bindings and I did not use CA to glue them which is a different discussion. In my case I was the inverse of my friend Michael and I coined the term "stealth bindings" seeing the back and side woods as an excellent choice for bindings that disappear from view. On my Black Tigers I used ebony bindings that were not painted black like the top was and you can only see this in direct sunlight.

So Hutch is right plastic bindings in terms of function are excellent for taking a bump and in some ways superior functionally to wood. That is if you can keep them on.... these days.

Back in the day Hutch's celluloid bindings were an excellent choice. I miss Rick Turner and this is one of those times because Rick was big on studying celluloid bindings and pick guards, etc and we suspected that 80 - 100 years was about all she wrote for them, so to speak. Now that this much time has passed we commonly see on vintage instruments the bindings falling apart, pick guards too and the outgassing of the celluloid also causing corrosion on near by metal parts including the frets over the body near a pick guard.

Celluloid was a great choice and it glued very well but it does have a life that we now know of. It's also flammable which can be a consideration too for folks like EC who are fond or were fond of attaching his lit cigarette to the head stock....

In the last 20 years as makers, factories switched to other more modern plastic we have learned that many of these plastics such as ABS do not glue well. I was a windsurfer dealer shortly after the windsurfer was invented and we had a hell of a time finding ways to attach our Sunto compasses to our boards for the 90 mile ride from Michigan to Chicago, McCormick Place. Even epoxy would not stick to our ABS boards.

There are some bindings coming loose on some Martin models, not all by any means and since we have been told that our binding repairs under warranty represent a significant percentage of all Martin warrant claims for bindings we have a good feel for how many guitars have been affected and it is not an epidemic by any means. I just bought a CEO7 that is one of the models that we have repaired loose bindings on. I bought it anyway because I believe the issue is resolved and we are past it now.

You have to ask yourself when Taylor and Martin were both using the same binding material and a small number of Martin's had bindings come loose what was the difference in the materials, glues, methods, etc.

What we believe happened is that Taylor had the luxury to let the material out gas for longer periods of time on the shelves than Martin did at times for some models. We now believe this is the likely cause of why some came loose and others didn't. It's also been addressed and should not be an issue in the future.

John Hall is always a great one to go to for the scoop on Martin since he's in there frequently and always happy to help us all.

Finally I feel differently about plastic bindings now and they are OK by me because functionally they are superior to wood for the original intended purpose of bindings. OTOH they are more difficult to glue but I will remind you too that I'm the one who is not a fan of CA being used for hardwood bindings we've seen entire segments of wood bindings come off that were glued with CA and took a bump and sheared right off. CA sucks in shear and we know this and the function of a binding is to take that bump so in my view not a good choice.

Folks who build vintage style instruments are going to be using celluloid bindings as well and that's understandable.

I've done some plastic bindings, both with Duco type adhesive and rubberized CA glue. Figured the rubberized CA would be more shock proof.

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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.

I choose binding to match the theme of the guitar. If I'm building a Gibson inspired electric I'll use cream or white plastic, the L5 inspired archtop got ivoroid. I had some nicely flamed koa, it got flamed maple



The fact that wood binding is all side grain means it give pretty good protection to the top and back, I choose it mostly for look.

Wood is considerably more difficult to install in tight cutaways and I sometimes break a few pieces getting it bent.

Freeman makes an excellent point wood is much harder to install in some bends, etc. Factories don't like time consuming difficulty in anything.

But its nice when you get it

I prefer wood binding mainly for aesthetic reasons and the many visual options available. That wouldn't stop me from using white ivoroid binding on the right guitar. I'm also a sucker for tortoise shell. I used celluloid tortoise shell binding on two guitars and liked it a lot although it's not as straightforward to install as standard plastic bindings. (I used the acetone/titebond method of gluing it on. I think I got that method from someone here about twelve years ago.) I generally don't care for plain white or black plastic binding. It looks cheap to me in most cases.

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I did an interesting one a while back. I had built a guitar inspired by the inexpensive all mahogany guitars of the 1930's, the original Martin 17 series and such. The original guitars were not bound but I did mine in mahogany binding with out any purfling lines. You have to look very closely to see the binding at all, but it gives the top and back some protection and makes it look a little more finished

I use wood if it’s one I want to dress up a bit. Mostly commissions. Usually same wood with mitered purfling if Rosewood and Rosewood with Mahogany or Maple. I like darker woods as you can make the joints almost invisible.

Charlie Hoffman used to be really good at making great joints with Maple binding but most I see are pretty visible.

On most guitars that go to a store I use either tortoise or ivoroid. I like the look, it’s a lot less work especially when you don’t have to do miters and it has not seemed to hurt sales.

I have always used that white binding cement from LMI that came in glass jars and now StewMac has what looks like the same stuff in tubes. Not aware of any loosening.

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

Completely agree celluloid tortoise bindings are to my taste one of the best looks in guitar bindings. Especially with black in the picture.

Acetone titebond method?

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Hutch

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

You wipe the inside surface of the celluloid binding with acetone and then use white glue like titebond to glue the binding on. I just searched back through the OLF to see where I got the idea and found a couple binding threads from 2010 and 2011 where this method was described by Todd Stock and Laurent Brondel. Todd Stock referred to wiping the celluloid binding with acetone as priming it.

I used this method to glue tortoise shell celluloid binding to white veneer to give the semi-transparent binding a visually uniform backing and to serve as a purfling line in the purfling scheme and then glued the binding/veneer laminate to the body with titebond. I described this in a previous thread and included a photo here: http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=45918&p=607921&hilit=tortoise+binding+acetone#p607921

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

I never had problems gluing on celluloid binding on my first 2 of 4 guitars.
But I had a whale of a problem with wood bindings- maybe 50% of the binding joints did not fill with grain filler and were invisible until lacquered. Lacquer from the gun would not fill these tiny gaps, and drop filling was a nightmare time wise.

I spent as much time on these gaps than I did building the guitar, as they were not visible until lacquering.

My current and fourth guitar has wood bindings, and I plan to use several epoxy sessions to fill the gaps before I finish sand and lacquer.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Karl, I have built 30 guitars by now and used wood for binding on at least half of them. I bind bodies, heads, fretboards, pickguards and f-holes on archtops. I prebend my binding to fit, either in my Fox bender or hot pipe, tape it tightly into the channels leaving gaps between the tape. "Tack weld" it in place with drops of thin CA, pull the tape and run CA all around the seam. Pore fill (with Zpoxy), seal and finish with lacquer - I have never had the problem you describe.

ps - I use the same method for plastic

pps - I learned it from somebody here quite a long time ago

Hope it was a one-time fluke.

Highly figured mahogany with bwb laminated on bottom, with TB1.
Pre-bent on fox bender, finish bending to closer-fit on hot pipe. Broke the sharp edge on inside bottom edge and I think I might have used fish glue; orange SM binding tape with cauls clamped on the waist. Waist had no gaps anyway.

My binding bit was sharp (as far as I know), and clean. Have tried to figure out the root cause so it doesn't happen again. Could have been the fish glue, taking so long to dry, leaving the wood wet? Or the bottom purfling buckling during bending in the fox bender, or the fish glue on the purfling.

What speed (low, med, high perhaps) do you guys use?
I'm using a Bosch Colt on a StewMac jig, with SM bits and brearings to cut binding channel.

PS: I did have some moderate runout on that router before I corrected it.

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Where were the gaps located? Were they distributed around the body or confined to particular places, on the bottom edge of the binding or between the binding/purfling and the top/back? Or were they at the binding joints? Or a mix?

I use an SM cutter, a tower, and a Bosch Colt on max speed. I don't how important the speed is.

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Once in a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right - Robert Hunter

Plastic is for cheap guitars and ukuleles and wood is for a nicer more high end look. With the exception of certain electric styles. Ie: Gibsons, fenders etc

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Oddly, the gaps were on the straightest portions of the perif.
Gaps were both between the binding and side, and the binding and the top purfling.
They were tiny, but LONG and a devil to deal with, which included a couple of sand throughs while fixing.

EDIT: Coincidently, about where changed the router direction (pulling the bit away and then back) for climb cut......wow!

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Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

The thread is a bit derailed so I’ll push us further off the tracks…

I scanned the thread and didn’t see it mentioned but there are two things that have helped me with improving binding results:

1) Relieve the pressure inside corner of the binding.

2) Alternate where the pressure is on the tape between each piece. This is hard to explain in text but easy to see. Basically place a piece of tape on the soundboard and pull it down to set it. Next piece, place the tape on the side and pull it up and over the soundboard / back. Alternate as you go.

Hope some of that helps.


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