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Anything more than finger pressure is an IMMENSE amount of pressure to apply to bindings whether it's plastic or wood. You're running a high risk of damaging the guitar at that point. I would definitely echo what Toonces and a few others have already stated that you need to consider what you're doing as you're going to break something with pressures that high.

With the wood bindings I just used on my current build I bent them almost exactly to match the shape of the body before gluing, and even when I did glue tape was enough to hold it in place because it was already bent mostly to shape.

I guess I was exaggerating but wood binding is a pain to deal with. I find sometimes heat gun (to soften the wood a little bit) helps because it bends the wood into place if it still wants to spring. That and it's not an exact science for me to cut binding into the exact shape without expensive custom made tools.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Something's not getting through. Wood bindings are bent using the same tooling and techniques as sides. If OP is bending sides then he has all the tools he needs to bend bindings. Bindings aren't a mysterious topic. Sides, just really narrow ones.

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Peter Havriluk

Did you guys assume I installed wood blinding without first bending them?

I did bend them prior to installation. The problem I run into is there are little imperceptible bumps here and there along the side, that is not noticeable to the naked eyes but when a wood binding tries to go over it it's a sharp bend for it, and it causes binding gaps.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

here is a trick that may help
if you can make a steam box that would be helpful
if you can't
get some duct work a Tee and 2 pieces even 3 in PVC pipe will work use schedule 40 the thicker wall
find a pot and get the water boiling. Prop the pipe up so it won't move around. place a rag at both end but let some steam come out both ends
lay your binding in there for 15 min and take it out then tape it to your guitar. let cool you will see it bends easy for you that way
do not leave this unattended

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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

Actually I even found this really nice extrusion that I can bend future sides in... It was intended for hospital beds. Cost me 15 dollars, bought it from a nearby shop who buffs metal.



I've been bending bindings on this.

It's just the right shape for bending side and cutaways. Used to be I had to take a 3" aluminum pipe and hammer it until it's oval. And it was never quite smooth so I get bumps on the side.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Some thoughts.

If your binding channels are not flush and clean this can cause slight bumps in the binding. You might look at the sides and see if there's some spots your bearing is hitting that is causing it to stutter or move slightly. If the sides are not smoothed outand all the residues from glue and such removed that can cause problems too. What species of wood are you using for binding?

I'm using curly maple.

Sometimes I prefer using a darker wood for binding because gaps and voids can be filled without making it look bad. But curly maple is unforgiving.

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Cat-gut strings are made from kitten guts, stretched out to near breaking point and then hardened with grue saliva. As a result these give a feeling of Pain and anguish whenever played, and often end up playing themselves backwards as part of satanic rituals.

Typhoon Guitars
http://www.typhoon-guitars.com

Gotcha. Something to keep in mind with figured wood is that if it gets too hot you can get some grain issues. If you're bending too hot then that might be part of where the bumps/inconsistencies are coming from.

Tai, do you chamfer the inside corner of your binding? It helps make a tighter fitting joint.

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Jim Watts
http://jameswattsguitars.com

Yeah, curly maple does tend to bend more at the high runout points, creating segmented lines. I've had best luck using a wet paper towel on the pipe to steam it, and making it fairly thin (like .060") so it's flexible enough that you don't have to get the bend perfect. Also it will bend more evenly if you gently roll it back and forth to get the the wood up to temperature before you apply any pressure.

I was just struggling with some purpleheart yesterday, and what worked best for that was to use the wet paper towel to steam and heat it, and then switch to the bare pipe for the actual bending (mostly I was afraid of steaming the purfling off of it if I kept it on the towel for very long). It's ridiculously stiff, so the bend does have to be near-perfect regardless of thickness. And it breaks very easily too. I was going to do an armrest bevel with it, but gave up and switched to walnut after two failures. I think it will look even better with the new design anyway. Still using purpleheart for the binding, with some mostly-freehand channel cutting to have it split around the walnut bevel. The top strip is glued first and then the ends chiseled to merge in with the main binding channel. The full length strip has had its height chiseled down in the bevel area so it can be bent vertically to go down and around the bevel (thanks to Steve Smith for showing me how to do it!). Took forever to get it just right, but it's all set for glue-up now (just taped in place for the photo).

The Ancient Mariner shot an albatross. What did luthiers do to deserve purpleheart?

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Peter Havriluk

Hey Dennis, that's looking good and glad it worked for you but I can't take the credit, I learned that from Kent Everett.

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Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Tai, are u using unbent wood?

I do one thing different. I cut a one" strip of maple purfling, .6 mm. Tape it to a non-stick surface (wide blue tape). Then paint it with tite bond. At the same time, in the binding channel, I do the same thing. I break the corners like John. When all is dry, I cut the purfling proud of channel depth, then I use a modeling iron to press the purfling into place. Makes the final binding (prebent) much less fussy to install (with tape, tite bond). I've done two layers of purfling this way as well. Do not try to sand purfling down until binding is attached. Do not make the purfling too tall (proud of surface).