Official Luthiers Forum!

Hi All - Happy New Year,

I have hit a couple of bumps with the binding stage of my build but the one I am most interested in gaining your collective insights on is finding a dark wood alternative for black ebony binding material. I quite like the rich dark black colour that ebony offers, but in my case, the ebony is becoming brittle and easily breaks during the bending process or shortly thereafter. I've had two out of four bindings snap, crack or fall apart on me after finishing the bend.

FWIW, I was heating my bender to 300*F. Possibly, therein lies the heart of the issue and you may want to offer your advice on bending ebony - but I am mostly interested in hearing what others might recommend as an alternative to ebony. I wonder about maple and dyeing it black but I fear a solid black end result will be difficult to achieve and I am not sure how dyed material will fair during the bending process? Any suggestions you can offer are greatly appreciated.

While I am not seeking your thoughts on another issue I experienced with my bindings, I thought I'd share. I decided to try my hand at making my own purfling. My sandwich was Black/Red/Black using dyed veneer sheets. I glued the side purfling strips to the ebony binding and then after spritzing with Windex and wrapping in parchment and foil, bent them at 300*F (as mentioned above). Of the four binding strips needed, two survived the bend process but the red dye disappeared in several spots after the heating process was complete. Once I figure out an alternative for ebony, I am going to try shellacking the purfling edges before I bend. Fingers crossed that will keep the red layer nice and bright.

Onwards and upwards, and again, thanks for your help!

Cheers folks!

Rick

I don’t have an ebony alternative other than black plastic which I don’t use. But, one good thing about ebony is that when it breaks, you can cut it on an angle (to make a scarf joint) on either side of the break and go on. A well fit and glued joint doesn’t show in ebony.

For side purfling, I usually cut the slot for it after I glue the binding (the slot and purfling hide any gaps) and then force the veneers into it. Usually, the veneer cut to the slot depth can be persuaded into the slot without heat although it can put up a fight.

I laminate dyed veneers in a form that matches where I will be using them; a rosette form for the rosette, a purfling form for the purfling. Your body mold can be the form for the purfling, if you use an appropriate spacer the thickness of the binding. No heat. The veneers are thin enough to bend into the shape in question, but not after you laminate them. You can use 1” or wider strips of the veneers, then cut them to the right size on the bandsaw after they are laminated.

The John Bogdanovich book on building classical guitars has great instructions for this type of laminating and cutting.

In general, laminating wood into straight strips, then trying to bend the sandwich, is a recipe for rough going. If the layers are not yet glued together, you are much better off laminating them into the shape you want to wind up with.

I have bent lots of Ebony, and broken lots as well. I make more mandolins than guitars and the bends are sharper on a mandolin so can be frustrating. Many times it is possible to glue up the break and it is not visible under finish. However, recently I have been using Macassar Ebony for bindings and it does seem to bend a lot easier, much less breaks. Indian Ebony seems to be the most brittle, but it is usually the blackest, and I suspect that is the stuff Stew Mac uses for their Ebony bindings because it is a pain to bend. I am willing to sacrifice a little blackness for less frustration, but I do need to make up the bindings with purflings myself.

One of my students wanted to use thick ebony bindings on an archtop some time back. We made up eight strips at a little more than half thickness, bent them, and laminated them in place. Nobody can tell.

I’ve used Rocklite Ebano before and quite liked it. Not sure if anyone has it anymore though…

There’s also a product called Obsidian Ebony which is a maple saturated with black dye to look like ebony but I don’t know if it comes in binding form…

African blackwood is great. Gilmer has it, but pricey at $10 per strip https://www.gilmerwood.com/products/116616-african-blackwood-guitar-binding-strips
I thought Hibdon closed down a few years ago, but the web site still looks active and has it listed at $20 for for a 1.5" wide piece to cut strips from https://www.hibdonhardwood.com/product/african-blackwood-binding-stock-2/

StewMac has blackened purpleheart fingerboards called royal blackwood that you could cut strips from, although you'll need 3 strips due to the shorter length. If it bends like regular purpleheart, it should be reasonably easy. https://www.stewmac.com/tonewoods/wood-parts/electric-guitar-fingerboards/unslotted-fingerboard-for-guitar

EDIT: Just noticed you're in Canada, so probably can't ship African blackwood.

My Black Tigers and other black tops I made were all bound in ebony which was not painted by the way only the tops were. As such I bent a lot of ebony and it is difficult to bend and doesn't want to stay bent either.

But even though this was mentioned it used to occur to me nearly every time I produced a black top instrument bound in ebony that I could not tell the difference once lacquer was applied from black plastic and ebony unless the ebony was not uniformly black or in direct sunlight. I used to joke that I'm jumping through hoops to bend ebony when no one can tell the difference between black plastic bindings and ebony.

There was another issue with ebony on my mind as well and that was although I never glued binding with CA ebony and CA can be problematic. We had at least two reports back in the day on this forum of ebony bindings coming off in 4' segments when glued with CA..... I always used Titebond Original for all wood bindings and now 20 years later they have all held up well.

What did work for me as I persisted with bending ebony was to get the dry fit as perfect as I could since manipulating the bindings during installation is as tough as it gets.

All these things helped me get to where I wanted to go:

1) Thickness bindings to 0.070"
2) scrape the inner edge at 45 degrees to fit in the channel more snugly
3) I bent them in the bender but I don't remember the temp but it was on the hot side (John Hall bender)
4) I would tape with 1/4" wide blue tape two or more bindings together side by side
5) I wrapped them in craft paper and double layered (wrapped twice) so I had more paper to hold more water
6) Spritzed them (the craft paper wrap) until they were pretty wet
7) After the first bend.... I let them cool over night in the bender
8) The next day without removing them I turned on the bender and cycled it again with dry heat now
9) Let them cool in the bender all the way for an hour or more

This resulted in bindings that only needed finger pressure to seat properly and I've never had any issues with some of these being 20 years in the wild now.

When I started Super Soft and later Super Soft II were not a thing on this forum yet. I never used it anyway I learned to live without it.

But you can see I went to a lot of trouble. And many of you guys are into CA for bindings which I don't recommend and I know that Titebond Original is messier and takes longer but it's held up great for me.

In the pics below it's all ebony bindings that are not painted but you can't tell unless you are in direct sunlight and look very closely. They are a PITA to work with for sure.

I had the same problem. Thin bindings did help. The big thing in my favor was that I wanted a little something to distinguish them from plastic, so I'd ask suppliers to send me bindings that weren't completely black, and also ask for ones that didn't have short grain. With the request for bindings with some "color", suppliers had could be more choosy about grain orientation. Bob C (RIP) was especially helpful back in the day.

_________________
formerly known around here as burbank
_________________

http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Rick,

I use ebony on everything I build, I just like the way it looks (70+ so far). My drug of choice is Gabon ebony. I find it the easiest to bend consistently. I cut my own, thicknessing the stock to .200” before ripping strips on the bandsaw. I rip down to about .110” then thickness sand to around .100”. I glue my purflings to the edge using TB3 a then final thickness to around .082”. In the end I’m bending an assembly that is about .080”x .245”. I book match the sets with the purflings facing each other, wrapping a 1” wide piece of notebook paper once around before adding a piece of tape, one at each end and one in the middle. The paper/tape combo makes things much easier to get apart and I store the bindings taped up until I’m ready to install them. I use a bending machine with SS slats so there is no need to foil wrap around anything. I do use 6” painters paper in the sandwich to help hold a little extra moisture. I will use super soft on the side if I think it’s going to give me trouble but just a light sprits of water on the ebony - I bend at 315° followed by 20 minutes at 260°. I may repeat the later a couple times depending of the species.

My purflings are all home brew these days. I got tired of the store bot ones coming apart during the bending process. I use TB3 for glueing up the veneers - it’s the only place TB3 is suitable for use on a guitar imo.

Anyway, works for me… M

I use rocklite ebano quite a lot, UK soutrce here, Cites shouldn't ne a problem.
Bending is a dream, very easy.

https://www.rocklite.co.uk/buy-rocklite-ebano-direct

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Anyone got a US source for Rocklite since LMI closed?

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Quick search threw up this https://edcofinewoods.com/en-us/products/rocklite-ebano-guitar-binding-black-2-piece-set-33-5-long

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Thanks Colin, I had seen them but they are in Canada. Not a big deal and I've ordered from the UK too. Was just looking to see if there was a US supplier that someone had experience with. I went ahead and ordered direct from Rocklike, their shipping was pretty reasonable. Thanks again.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

The rub I have with the Ebano product is that it’s only .070” thick. I prefect a bit more thickness. I did experiment with Richlite a little but found that a bridge was quite a bit heavier than the equivalent in ebony, and that bindings didn’t bend very well, as if there was weird grain in the material. The material would twist in the middle of the bend. It’s also really hard on tooling. I’ve got a bunch of Richlite binding stock if someone wants to give it a go, I’m never going to use it. Maybe you’d have better results.

M

Turns out Rocklite UK will not ship to US through their online app.

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

Gabon ebony is not nearly as brittle as Indian Ebony. I've heard that Holly dyed black is an excellent substitute as well.

Did you see at the bottom of their page

Might be worth a Skype call?

_________________
The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

Yep, saw that after I tried to do the online order. I went ahead and ordered some from the folks in Canada. If I like it then I'll call the Rocklite in the UK and see about a bulk order. Thanks for the help Colin

_________________
Steve Smith
"Music is what feelings sound like"

As mentioned, African blackwood is a lovely substitute for the ebonies - it is a rosewood and like other members of that family bends without much in the way of fuss. We milled our own from billets at much lower cost than commercial sources, and enjoyed the slightly warmer black/brown/90% cacoa chocolate color of the wood, as well as a somewhat more interesting appearance versus Gabon ebony. We also routinely substituted African blackwood for Gabon ebony in acoustic bridges for the tonal benefits, and I'm not sure any customer ever saw much of an appearance difference even when reminded of the substitution.

On your bending issues: I would suggest you avoid allowing your bending package to rise to peak desired temperature BEFORE bending. Start your bend as soon as there are signs of both the upper and lower bout areas generating steam. Finish the bend while there is still lots of steam being generated. nearly all broken/ under-bent sides and binding I saw were the consequence of expending all available moisture in the bending package prior to making the required bends.

Why? The change from liquid water to steam takes a lot of energy... this required phase change means that temperature in the bending package will not go too much above the boiling point until all of the water near where you are measuring temperature has been converted to steam. Bending depends that steam to soften the lignin and resins holding all those cellulose fibers rigidly in place and to allow some relative slippage of those fibers in the resin matrix. If you wait until bending package temps are well above the boiling point, you will have likely expended all of the water in the package and will lack the benefits of using steam to cause that momentary period of plasticity in the wood.

Ebony binding loves water... a kraft paper reservoir for that water (as I have described in previous notes on the subject) does a nice job of allowing water content in the package to be modulated and addresses the tendencies of some woods to be rather parsimonious in absorbing water by moving the supply for bending outside the wood itself. Think about a (from inner to outer) slat-foil-wet paper-wood-wet paper-foil-slat-blanket-slat bending package.

Peak temp for most rosewoods to set the bend is well below many other woods. 270-280 degrees F is about as warm as we went, usually just allowing the wood to peak at that temp, then quickly reducing to 250-260 deg F to dry for about 30 minutes (with thermocouple at what would be the widest extent of the lower bout).

Many thanks to all for your great feedback and suggestions.

I am intrigued by the laminated veneer suggestion (will keep that in my back pocket for a future try). I had explored the Rocklite ebano alternative. There is a Canadian source but as it turns out, the Rocklite bindings come in .070” thickness and my ledges are .080” deep (because of the colour issue I have experienced I need to router out the bindings I have already installed). Thank you Hesh, Michael and Willard for your detailed explanations regarding bending ebony - this is very helpful!

Love the forum. This is such a giving community. Again, thanks to all you for sharing your expertise!

Cheers from Ontario!
Rick