Official Luthiers Forum!

As I get older, I find certain things more and more tedious.

Doing binding gap touchups is really getting on my nerves.

I would like to try the tire/tubes thing where you wrap the snot out of the box to get even pressure and close the gaps.

If anyone does this and can give some tips, please let me know!

Ed—

I use silicone rubber bands. See this thread for my inspiration:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=48073&hilit=silicone+rubber+bands&start=0

They work great! I don’t get gaps, ever. Downside: The way I do it, I can only bind half of a plate at a time, then let it dry before I move on. So, it takes longer. But the results are bindings and purflings with zero gaps, so I’ll take it.

Thanks Don!

I love that the final post on your thread is me thinking about this six years ago, lol…

I've been using the 'rubber rope' for fifty years and more. I takes some hand strength: I can't do more than two guitars in a day. OTOH, the results are worth it. I like to do the binding with fish glue; the long working time is a real help. So far I have not had any problems with it in ~25 years of use, so I'd provisionally say that it work fine. I used to do the binding in two goes using Titebond: glue up the top binding with the back binding taped in place to protect the edges, and and then do the back binding about 45 minutes later. Any areas of the top where the binding had not got down tight could be corrected, as the tick glue lines would not have set up. fully and you could pull them in.

A better link as the one in the thread could not be found: These are silicone, not innertube
https://grifiti.com/search?q=silicon+bands&filter.p.product_type=

I bought 30 feet of silicon tubing, but wide bands look interesting.

_________________
Measure Twice,

Karl Borum

Not sure what your current system is, but I use nylon twill tape. Fish glue and titebond doesn’t stick to it, and I use the same bundle on my plate joining jig. Pretty forgiving and easy to figure out as soon as you run through a few practice tries. I haven’t had too much issue with gaps

https://youtu.be/J78EvjsBrqk?si=aEvogTDwS0cVg8qo

Kyle wrote:
" I use cotton twill tape. Fish glue and titebond doesn’t stick to it,..."

I know Titebond and hide glue don't stick well to nylon twill tape, but they both stick to poly-cotton blend. So I'm curious...?

Trust Alan on this—I purchased the twill a few years ago (another benefit!) so I can’t remember what blend it was

I have a plastic bin from Target full of these bands at Don's rec. They're perfect for binding.

I have a little cradle with screws sticking out of the sides as anchor points that I wrap them around.