Official Luthiers Forum!

So here's a question. How are you guys handling the body binding where it meets the neck? If you bind the body first, and then cut a neck pocket, the binding (especially on the treble side) gets very thin and either wants to flex or sometimes even just comes unglued entirely (talking about plastic binding here). If you bind afterwards, which I've never tried, it seems like you'd have this feather edge of wood that you have to glue to, and then you need to trim the binding inside the neck pocket to make it flush.

I don't know if I'm explaining that well, but anyone who's ever done it probably knows what I'm talking about.

Maybe the right thing to do is to cut the neck pocket unbound, and then trim the binding ledge back enough that you can bind the perimeter, and then put a short straight piece to meet the neck?

I know...this is so hard to describe. I'm just wondering how people handle this. I always seem to be doing touching up on the binding around the neck pocket, and I know there must be a better way of doing it. It's one of those things that I just never really figured out a good technique for. If I could figure out how to get wood binding around my tight horns, I'd just do that and the problem would disappear, but plastic binding always seems to be a problem in this area for me.

Thanks for any pointers.

I'll answer as the person least qualified to answer. After several readings, I think I may understand the problem. Three solutions come to mind: #1 Better glue. (Cyanoacrylate might hold the plastic binding in place more firmly?) #2 A stepped pocket. (Run the binding underneath the fingerboard.)
#3 Wood bindings. (There have been several threads concerning bending machines.) Chris V. has managed to incorporate some very sharp bends. I'd ask Chris.

I cut the binding channel first, then the neck pocket, then glue the binding in place. Although honestly, I usually work with wood binding if I bind my electric guitars at all (not often. Well, not the bodies. Almost always the fingerboards).