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I am trying to figure out what glue people use for their plastic bindings, especially factories like Gibson and Taylor.

I have been using ABS Binding from LMI along with the Weld-on glue they sell ( #4784 vinyl adhesive in the blue and white tube) .Its the same glue they have been selling for over 20 years.....

I just got a guitar that I made 22 years ago which has some of the binding coming off-I am not very happy.

As far as I know , I did everything correctly...

I see Gibson es-335's etc. that are 70 years old that the original binding is still perfect.

What gives?

Duco Cement in the green and yellow tube.

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I have been using LMI’s FCA for many years. So far so good but there could be some failures out there I don’t know about. Mostly with celluloid binding.

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22 Years?

That's a very long time when so much could have happened.

This is all hand waving & armchair analysis but I suspect plastic adhesives from 70 years ago had a lot of nasty stuff in them that are illegal now.

Kevin Looker

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- CA holds anything, and is the quickest glue to use for the job - no waiting for solvent-based glues to dry and celluloid to shrink back. Most of our work uses CA these days.

- Celluloid glues well with Duco or IP-16

- ABS and ABS/PVC alloys (e.g., Bolteron) need the extra solvent power of IP-16 or similar - Duco is not hot enough, a it is just gelled acetone, versus the additional solvent package in glues made for those materials.

- Martin's recent issues with binding cements affected all of their binding materials - Bolteron, celluloid, and wood. While their glue was very similar to LMI's FCA (as is Taylor's adhesive), we were told that the formula was a little 'Greener', and eventually proved to be faulty. While the number of guitars showing issues is fairly small right now, it really does not take a very high percentage of delivered guitars to bury the Repair Department in binding work.

On adhesive content...celluloid is happy to glue with acetone...Martin never had issues keeping binding on their guitars until they switched to Bolteron in the 1960's (while continuing to use Duco as an adhesive). The issue with celluloid is the quality of the material and how well stabilized it is. Both Gretsch and Gibson have had problems over the years with bad materials, with mid-1960's Gretsch Country Gentlemen showing some truly horrific failures...nitric acid vapor from decomposition eating metal and causing a real mess.

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The gentleman who owns this guitar has taken extremely good care of it.

It has basically never left his living room and he keeps it in the case when it is not being played.

I am not sure what glue they used back then, but it sure worked!

Woodie, Thanks for the informative reply!

Yes, I use Duco for the celluloid and it seems to bond well.

I think I am going to try the FCA from LMI.

I have tried using the CA for binding-it does bond well, but I guess I am not used to using it so I am not that comfortable with it yet.....

Any tips on using the CA?

A little goes a long way. It wicks best in tight fittings. It’s all I use but mine haven’t been around 25 years. Make sure it’s fresh. Once a bottle is open and exposed to air, it loses strength.

The "tape and wick in thin CA" method is what many people use for bindings, but with the right frame of mind you can do "apply the CA to the rebate and hold the binding in place while it sets" when doing flexible plastic bindings. Dusting the rebate with baking soda can speed the cure. By working short (and not so short) sections at a time you can avoid the hassle of placing and removing the tape, and by using a medium viscosity CA you can avoid some of the cleanup wicking the thin stuff in from the top can create.

https://www.woodworkersjournal.com/home ... celerator/

Yes, I know I use Starbond for many years just not for bindings.

I have been building for 46 years, but started using plastic on Archtops about 25 years ago. Before that only wood using Titebond and they are still on there like stink!

I have tried both methods and I think I prefer the latter, but I used the thin. I will have to try it with the medium.

This last binding assembly had 5 pieces not including the teflon strips so I had to do it in stages.

The results....




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Impressive! Nice combination of materials.

CA with mahogany can seal it and show under finish.
I use Duco cement or weldon
The more I do this the less I use CA

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
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Yeah I've been using CA for quite some time but the last guitar I did it wicked into a beautiful old growth Red Spruce top and ruined it. And that was after applying shellac. So beware! I think the key is to apply at least two coats of shellac but still, I'm probably going to go back to using Duco.

We seal the channel and surrounding wood with 2-3 coats of super-blond shellac...no issues with CA showing with either epoxy or paste wood fillers on mahogany or any other wood. As always, the Five P's prevail: Proper Prep Prevents Perplexing Problems...do a proper job of sealing. All of the wicking issues we've seen - usually on repair jobs brought to use for remediation, but a few from new builders - have been failures to properly seal the work, rather than anything to do with the adhesive itself.

Taylor uses CA as well where needed for it's quick cure and holding power - usually on the tight curves of their cutaways. About 50% of the guitars we build have cutaways, so avoiding the waiting and issues with taping and the increase in clean-up forced us to develop the techniques and procedures to make CA work for us. We tack side and inner purflings in 2-3 inches at a time using GluBoost to accel if needed, then tack in the UGMW channel strip, outer purfling, and binding in the same manner. Once all is good, the full joint gets flowed, with the body held in the most advantageous manner to control lower viscosity glues. While GluBoost accelerator is safe to speed CA cure, we avoid the older technology accelerators due to foaming and the potential for color change of some lower quality, hardware store CA's.

And just to make the point re: the sheer diversity of experience here, the better we have become using CA for binding operations over the last decade, the less attractive we have found solvent-based adhesives to be with their extended drying times, shrinkage, and performance issues.

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A constellation only takes shape when one maps the whole.
- Beth Brower

Here’s an interesting thing....

It turns out I have a piece of an Archtop guitar I built 25 years ago so.

The story is I went to hang this guitar on a hook and I missed and dropped it on the floor and the whole thing split so I was able to salvage the neck but I kept part of the body this whole time on which I used celluloid Ivoroid binding.

It’s been sitting on a shelf for the whole 25 years in the rough part of my shop which is really not conditioned space and has some pretty large temperature/ humidity fluctuations.

I used Duco cement.

I’m happy to report that the binding is on their securely.







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I would love to just use the celluloid but the stuff is insanely expensive at this point.

For a binding scheme like this one it's around $160.including the hazmat fee and shipping...…..


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If you use CA for bindings/repair, wrap your thumb with a single layer of packing tape (Polypropylene)—it allows you to put pressure on the binding, sliding your thumb right along the binding without the risk of gluing yourself to the guitar.

You know that I know from first-hand experience.

That sounds like a great idea. I will have to try it.

I would guess that we have all glued ourselves to a guitar once or twice....

"Honey, could you come into the shop? Bring your nail polish remover!"

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Last batch of Ivoriod I purchased from an outfit in the U.K. No hazmat

That only nocks off $35. so still expansive.

The added advantage of celluloid is it fails before the glue does.
I don't know if ABS/PVC plastic binding is any better than celluloid in the long run but the track record for celluloid is not that great. How long has ABS/PVC been used for bindings?




Now would that be the left hand or the right hand?

Like I said in the start of this thread , there are many 70 year old Gibsons with some kind of white binding that are in perfect shape......I am not sure what type of plastic they are. Does anyone know what they used?