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Greetings!

I have never bound either a fingerboard or peghead plate, but I am getting ready to and thought it better to hear the approaches and how to's from the group.

My thinking and/or questions

On the fingerboard, are you cutting the board sides during tapering to compensate for the binding thickness?
Same question or thought on the peghead plate?

Just a guess

If you do anything different or if this is completely wrong, please share. I just found out that I don't have to go out of town tommorrow, soooooooooooo that means that I am free to play in my shop for the next 4 days which during this time of the year is a blessing.

Thanks

Mike

You are right on the fingerboard binding (I'm assuming you aren't using purfling on this one). If you have .10 binding, you want to decrease the size of the fingerboard by .20.
On the headplate, I guess there are probably several ways to do it. But I bind it after it's been glued to the headstock. I just route as I would the body and bind like that. I think it might look a bit odd if you have it as thin as just the headplate.

One of the recent Guitarmaker journals has a great jig in it (sorry, I forgot who created it). It was essentially a series of cams that you employ to press the binding on while the glue is drying... it was very clever.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

   An easy jig to make is take a flat board , to one side attach a non movable rail. To the other side clamp a straight edge along the same line as the fretboard with the bindnig dry fit.
   Once glued you can use that and wedge the fretboard and binding into it.
john hall
bcg

I bind all my fretboards, more often than not with the same wood as the fretboard. The StewMac fret tang nipper is a great tool. Before springing for that I just used a dremel with a cut off disk, which works fine if you're in no rush. I have always used tape and CA, but I think I will try what John is suggesting, getting CA out of fret slots is a real pain.

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David White, Toronto

"All my favourite singers can't sing."

Thanks for the input, I wil proceed as described.

Mike

Great idea John, thanks for that.

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Mike, I've been doing like Paul suggests, binding the peghead after the p/h veneer is glued down and the head is shaped. I use a thicker overlay than, say, Martin, so that when bound, the channel has to be no deeper than the overlay itself. (He is right, it would look insubstantial to bind only the depth of a thin overlay.)
In fact, I've been leaving mine "thick" enough to leave a wee bit of the overlay showing: i.e. the routed channel does not go all the way down to the peghead, it stops maybe .015-.020", leaving that much of the overlay for a "purfling"-like line under the binding. I hope that is making sense. You could do the same on the fretboard if you wanted. Or just glue on some purfling to your binding there. So many options....

Steve

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