Official Luthiers Forum!

Hey all! First off, this is my first post here and I'm excited to browse through the forums, looks like there is a wealth of information here!

I've been doing some binding repair on a '57 Guild Aristocrat and need some advice. On the low-E side of the fingerboard, the binding has started to peel away from the fingerboard and has apparently shrunk so that the little nibs don't line up with their respective frets. The only thing I can think of is to cut the binding, move it to where it lines up, and then fill in the gap with small piece of binding and color match. Before I attempted that, I figured I would ask if anyone here had come across a particular repair like this and what their solution was. Thanks!

If you want the nibs to align with the frets perfectly again you would need to cut the binding at each fret space. Simply moving a set amount will only align maybe two at best because the material has shrank. I would simply replace the loose section with new and salvage/reuse the original marker dots.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

Thanks for the reply! If I may pick your brain on another question with the same guitar...the binding has shrunk and pulled away from the waist and the cut away. I’ve encountered this problem before on a few Martins and simply got out the hair drier, heated the binding, and re-glued it. However, no matter what I do, I can’t seem to get the binding in these spots to stretch back to the channel. I’ve made different clamping cauls and rigged ways to pull the binding back in, which worked to an extent, but there’s still about an 1/8” gap. Is it a matter of not getting enough heat? Or is the binding too far gone?

Before


After


Cut away

Once they are too far gone they will not stretch back into place. Options are rebind whole guitar or cut and splice in some small pieces.

_________________
Brian

You never know what you are capable of until you actually try.

https://www.howardguitarsdelaware.com/

The binding has shrunk permanently. You either have to cut it and splice in a piece, or the preferred option is to release it all the way to one end and then re-glue it. You can fill in the gap at the released end where it will be less visible.

Looks like Mr. Howard beat me to the punch.