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$7 bucks a strip, that's $28 bucks for a normal binding scheme:

https://www.rothkoandfrost.com/inlay-c3 ... B3%5D=1877

1,400 mm (55") seems line a strange length to sell these in. That is not quite enough for doing both sides of a guitar but too long for one side.

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Bryan Bear PMoMC

Take care of your feet, and your feet will take care of you.

Leftovers - Another good reason to build Ukes!

They may be cutting the strips off a sheet that is 55 inches wide, rather than a roll that is 300 feet long.

I recently bought 3 Pcs Tortoise Shell Celluloid Guitar 1650 x 6 x 1.5mm Binding Purfling Strip on eBay for $7.59 w/ free shipping. the vendor was "friendstore1682010". Came fairly quickly considering it was from china and no hazmat fee.

LOL laugh all you want, they come in different sizes, just ask.... Just tryin' to help a brother out. I don't use plastic for the most part but was happy to find a vendor when I needed it. So it goes.

plastic is more protective and when done right is fine. I have seen martins that are 100 yrs old and the plastic is still solid.
Often it is technique and using any wood glue on plastic is asking for a problem. I use Duco Cement havn't had an issue in 20 yrs of building

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I certainly wasn't laughing at you, John, the laughter was because I often find a reason to use "offcuts" of materials that prove to be an economical solution to sourcing materials for other instruments. If a vendor sells you 55 inches of material for less money than one who sells you 3 ft of the same material is that a problem? Not generally - unless it's toxic waste! It's always good to find alternate sources of materials, especially those that sell for a little less.

The binding scheme I use on this model has 8 plies of .020 black and they only are available in 2-ply so it takes 16 strips just to do the top and back not counting the outside binding...…..

then I glue another 4 pieces for the side purfling-so you see how it adds up.

The ebay store I referenced above has many colors of abs too including black even cheaper in large quantities.

Yeah that's beautiful work you do there. I think I cried a bit seeing that guitar sawn in half but it's cool to see the cross section of that too. The black doesn't have to be HASMAT celluloid though does it?

No, it doesn't but the problem is I don't want to deal with individual.020 strips so the only lams. that are available are either 4 ply b/w/b/w ABS or 2 ply ivoroid/black celluloid.....

Most suppliers sell the 1.5mm strips which equate to about .060.

I only use .090 for the binding which is much harder to obtain.

Edgeco has .020 PVC available in 600 ft X 15/16ths inch rolls if you could figure out a way to laminate it without it becoming too tedious.

Great info Brad. These pictures tell me two things,

The first is celluloid bindings can be great. I've always leaned toward wood but now I think I should reconsider plastic.

The other is that side braces should extend plate to plate and not stop at the linning.

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Joe Beaver
Maker of Sawdust

I am going to do a test......

I will rout a binding channel in a piece of wood and glue some binding in using different types of glue and see how they react to trying to break the bond....

So far the glues I am going to use will be:

Duco
LMI weld on 4784 ( blue and white tube)
LMI FCA (jar)
CA
Hide glue
Roo glue
Yellow glue-after wiping plastic with acetone


I will do one set with ABS, one with PVC and another set with Ivoroid

This picture tells me one thing... DON'T drop your guitar on a cement floor from a height of 8 feet........

A short article that doesn't give up much information on 50's Gibson plastics.

https://www.themusiczoo.com/blogs/news/ ... de-and-out

Prep of the binding will be important...Bolteron in particular needs cleaning and toothing with a 3M non-woven maroon abrasive pad if used with glues that are not hot enough solvent-wise to bite into the material (e.g., Duco). FWIW, the acetone wiping trick with Titebond works well with celluloid, but you'll definitely need very good prep with ABS, PVC, and alloys of those two.

I'm not sure the problem is short term so much as long term (5-10 years) on glues like Duco on Bolteron, but I'll be interested to see how things turn out.

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For the times they are a changin'

- Bob Dylan

I always run plastic binding over a 100 grit piece of sandpaper stuck down to a marble tile to give it some tooth. Especially when using CA. This definitely helps adhesion.

Brad, I am really interested in hearing the results of your testing.

I have been building for over 20 years. A few years ago there was a lot of talk about using some of the wood glues to glue on plastic
RU
Rabit
Hide and Tite bond were mentioned

I had tried the HHG and tite bond.
the process was straightforward sand and glue. At first the results appeared promising so I made a guitar after testing. In 2 years I had to redo all the wood glued plastic binding for it came off clean as a whistle. So use a glue that is designed for the material you are working with. Binding will get bumped so know it has to work and be something you can rely on.
I tried CA one time. It really made clean up a bear and it also left glue marks under finish and I had to give that guitar away. I went back to good ole duco cement. After 20 years none came loose unless it was damaged and that showed signs of welding into the wood cells.
martin had a big issue with binding coming off and they have that fixed now. it seemed the glue they used was reformulated .

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John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

John, Please correct me if I am wrong, but 100 years ago wasn't hot hide glue the only glue that Martin was using at that time?

The other question I have- have you been using ABS or PVC or just celluloid?

Martin used acetone to glue on the celluloid binding not hide glue. before plastic Martin did use ivory that had hide glue.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

I use Titebond to *fix loose bindings and I've never seen one come back though perhaps they took it to some other guy and gave me a bad review! But I think that works out ok becasue when binding gets loose it usually takes some fibers and residue with it and that's probably what the Titebond really sticks too.

as a martin repair shop we are told to use a specific glue from 3m. I have used CA on binding that was loosened but nor shrunk.
If it has shrunk I then loosen it to the joint and reglue.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it