A blog about building guitars. This started out as a document to chronicle the process of building one instrument but has grown to include pretty much any and all guitars that I attempt to build.
I see tape fringe! That can mean only one thing. Daddy's gonna have a good time tonight!!!
...ahem...
Sorry. Wrong blog...
But seriously, it's time for more binding (yay!). I decided way back that I wanted to bind this Les Paul style neck - including the headstock. So, here we go. In a previous post, I discussed how I needed to make a channel for the binding to sit in.
57 Channels and nothing on
Also in a previous post, I talked about making binding paste...
Mmmmm... Death Chicklets
The joy of watching plastic melt...
Death Chicklet soup...?
I've also talked at length about working on plastic binding: here, here, and here.
Always the same: It's picture day and I have flyaway binding
So what more is there to talk about?
Not much. I just thought a post of nothing but pictures would be a bit boring.
And I thought the blog would be a bit dry without my pithy observations.
Something pithy
But in truth - here's the bit I wanted to get to: The headstock.
Binding the neck isn't really that new and different. If anything, it's easier than a guitar body because it's pretty much a straight run of binding with no curves. Until you get to the headstock.
Curvy you say?
The headstock was the reason I needed to bind the neck over two days. Day one was the neck and the big curves of the headstock. Day 2 was for all of the little curves.
All wrapped up and nowhere to go.
So, after Day 1 we are left with this:
No, my workbench didn't magically turn into polished stone.
After all the tape was removed we had this:
Ladies and gentlemen - my kitchen floor
If you look closely you can see that I cut the binding too long - so I need to trim it.
*Blink-Blink*
And we're back in the garage.
Take some snips and cut the binding to the correct length and you are left with this:
That middle bit is going to be a problem
And this:
And this is gonna make the guitar look better how?
And this...
Son of a...!
So, remember when I said there was really nothing new to report about doing the binding on the side of the neck. Yeah, I lied again. Lying liar that I am. What happened here?
I was pretty surprised myself. I must have pulled the binding in the wrong direction when I taped it down because I was about a half inch short. And by the time I realized this the binding was mostly done - so it would have been a real pain to redo. So, I slapped another small strip on there and we'll work on it.
Lil' bits
Day 2 working on the neck was to affix the little bits. Now there is a reason I split this process over two days. To make these pieces blend seamlessly with the larger bits you have to trim, sand, and pre-fit them.
Unless you actually know what you're doing and then you do this in one night...
I started simple with the small piece that goes on the butt of the neck.
Heh, heh. He said butt!
Then I tackled the top of the headstock. On a traditional Les Paul guitar, the final profile or shape is supposed to look like an open book. Which means I'm going to have to do something about that peak in the middle there.
Binding gives you wings!
Since we use anthropomorphic terms for guitars (neck, body, head-stock) this last part here would be the what? Jowls? Adam's Apple? Lymph Nodes?
Then I waited overnight and on day 3 scrapped that sucker.
I will mention again that I use both a cabinet scraper and a utility blade to scrap bindings. This time out I also tried using a 1/4 inch chisel. Which worked for the area where the nut will go as that is harder to scrap or snip.
After a rough night on the town
After a shower and shave.
Scraping turned up a few blunders. I kind of thought this one might not be a tight fit as I taped over it. But until you take the tape off it's hard to know either way.
Heisenberg's lesser-known experiments with binding. No dead cats required.
And I knew the top of the headstock was going to need a solution.
Pictured: Unresolved issues
Buth otherwise - it's starting to look pretty good
Pictured: Pretty good
Seeing as this neck started out life looking like this:
So, I've had some work done. So what?
I mixed up a small batch of binding paste and filled in the cracks.
Once that's dry we'll scrap again.
Some days it feels like I'm just doing the same thing over and over...
Mmmmmm...
Doesn't that look healthy?
In order to fill in the gaps of my poor binding job - I had to over-fill those gaps. So I started out making another round of binding paste using acetone and tiny pieces of binding.
We're all all fine here...
How are you?
This time around I let the acetone evaporate a little more so that the paste was very thick - almost the consistency of spackling paste. I then made a first pass on the binding - to fill up the spots that went down to the bare wood. It looks pretty thick - but was actually significantly less than my first attempt.
Things can only get better from here, right?
After a two or three days of letting the acetone evaporate (and the binding harden) I went back for Round 2! I basically did the same thing again - put another layer of really thick goop on top of what I already laid down in order to build up the binding enough to be able to scrape it flush with the body.
A sad state of affairs when this can be referred to as "progress."
A mess with a purpose...
I then let this sit for another couple of days (okay maybe it was a week - who's counting?) while this layer of goop hardened.
One step forward - two steps back...
Then it was time for Round 3!
Round three was more of the same, really. Scrape with the card scraper, sand with the sand paper, and try not to mess it up. There was one addition this time around and it came from Dan Erlewine of course. Dan is Stewart MacDonald's spokesperson, main tool developer and guitar repairman extrordinaire. I have to say - I keep coming back to this guy's advice and it's usually on the money. He suggests using a razor blade to do fine scraping instead of a card scraper.
Um...
That's not half bad...
Boy, did that make a big difference. I was having a hard time getting the last bits of binding paste smeared on the wood off - trying to use sand paper. The card scraper was taking too much off and thinning the binding too much.
The Russian Judge gives it a 7.0
One difference (one of many) between Dan and myself: he uses safety razor blades and I use utility razor blades. I'm sure that at some point I'll do what he does ('cause he's usually pretty spot-on) but I liked the rigidity of the utility blades for scraping and the results were fairly good. Safety razor blades just seem to flimsy - but my opinion may change with my level of experience.
Perhaps I shouldn't be so negative...
I'm feeling much better about the binding now. It's still uneven, sloppy looking, and unfinished but it's 1000 times better than it was - so I'm going to leave it alone for now and move on to finishing the headstock and neck pocket.
That'll do...
Once I get those two squared away we can finally start digging holes in this sucker!
It looks like a wad.
...of gum! It looks like a wad of gum.
When last we looked at the binding process - things weren't going well.
In fact they looked like the above picture. It was kind of a mess and needed some TLC.
No Sir. I don't like it!
So I scraped (and scraped and scraped) away all that excess binding goo until I was left with...
@#*%^!!!
Well, that's not what I intended to do. In my zest (okay, let's be honest - it was frustration) to finish up the binding I was a tad too aggressive with the scraping and this fresh bit of nonsense happened.
A nice fat chip of binding came out - right down to the bare wood.
I believe the word you are looking for is, "Craptastic."
It was about this time that I took a breather from fixing the binding and moved on to plugging the tuning peg holes in preparation for laminating the headstock. When I came back to this it was with the knowledge that I had more to do and little idea of how to go about it.
So, I did what seemed most logical - I kept scraping...
So this is what happens when you scrape with a cheese grater
The binding now looked marginally better but more importantly - it was flush to the body. As you can see the area around that chip is thin. Like super thin - near paper thin. I'm going to try and build up this area (and fix all those chips and dents) slowly - in small passes. Like I should have done in the first place.
But since it is also pretty flush to the wood - I can't build it up too much.
Another challenging aspect of the needed repairs is that the thinnest sections of the binding are no longer glued to the body. Right near that chip the binding has come away from the wood. The really thin section on the other side of the horn has come away as well. I can probably wick some CA glue in there but I don't know if I want to risk getting any on the wood. That's the one downside of CA (superglue) - it seals the wood so it won't take a finish or stain. We'll see...
Getting CA glue in there will be easier - but I think binding goo will look better.
My next step is to mix up another batch of binding paste/goo and try to cover some of these mistakes.
Let's all remember kids - the reason I'm in this mess is because I wanted to take the easy way out.
There's something to be said for doing the hard part first. In my case it's that I would be fixing a mistake that didn't need to be made.
Somewhere in the back of my head I conveniently forgot exactly how long it takes to scrape binding. I was thinking this would take me 30 minutes - maybe an hour.
Ha! Two and a half hours later I was left with the pile of shavings in the above picture (and about half that much on the shop floor as well).
So how did we get here?
Remember a few posts ago when I said "Don't slop it on" when referring to applying the binding goop. Yeah, I should learn to follow my own advice...
"Don't slop it on" you say?
I did the exact opposite of not slopping it on - and had to deal with the consequences of that. Namely - scraping and scraping and - oh look - more scraping! Here's how you do it:
Not pictured: Accuracy
First off, this isn't how you hold a card scraper. You use two hands. I was taking pictures with one hand and trying to simulate scraping with another - so this isn't really accurate. Check out the video below to see how this was really done.
The card scraper is a wonderful tool. You can use it on a push stroke or pull stroke, it is fairly easy to sharpen, and comes in a multitude of sizes and shapes. One thing some people do is round off the sharp corners on their card scrapers - so that they don't gouge things with those pointy edges. Some day I will do this - as I did indeed gouge the top a couple of times and had to sand those (rather large) scratches out.
You do this for a while...
I didn't take any pictures of it - but I also used the goose-neck card scraper to get into the curves. It's the same process - you need to make sure you don't take off too much wood - just binding. Again, take it slow - if you are seeing more wood shavings than binding shavings you probably want to ease off.
The sides are even easier to work on as you have a built in guide to help you scrape a straight line. You do need to keep a close eye on how much you are taking off though. I was a little too aggressive on some parts of the sides and now the binding is a tad too thin in those places.
No, I did not get that scar working on guitars. I got it while gardening of all things...
Now might also be a good time to talk about consequences. You see, when you glop on binding paste really thick you run the risk of it not fully curing. Which is what happened to me. Even though this had 24 hours to harden - some of the goop was still goopy (or at least gummy) and because of that it wouldn't scrape. It was like trying to scrape putty - it kind of works - but not really.
My guess is that these didn't harden because the goop was piled on so high the acetone couldn't fully evaporate. In theory if I leave these now exposed gummy sections to cure overnight they should fully harden. That's what I'm going to try anyway. I'll let you know how it goes. This was mostly a problem at the horn/cut-away. But there were a few other areas that exhibited this behavior. Gladly most of the binding was cured and hardened.
Hmmm... Is that what I think it is?
It is pretty neat to see the finished product appear out of this chaos. It's kind of like the first time you develop a picture in a darkroom - something beautiful slowly reveals itself.
Once I had finished scraping I did some sanding.
...okay, I did a lot of sanding.
In addition to the scratches on the top created by the edge of the card scraper the basswood strips (the light colored wood in the middle) were damaged by the masking tape. When I pulled off the tape - strips of basswood came with it. Anyone who has worked on a spruce top acoustic will know all about this - as it's a common problem. I've never worked with basswood before - so I wasn't expecting this. It didn't take a lot of sanding to fix - but just FYI.
After about two hours of scraping and sanding this is how things look:
Oh...
My...
I kind of like that...
Yeah, that will do nicely
Just so we are all on the same page - this is far (far, far, far) from perfect. As you can see - there's a considerable amount of clean up to do on the horn. But I need to wait until things are fully cured before I can go after this.
It looks like a wad of gum. ...kind of has the texture of gum too...
What you can't see is that the binding is thinner in some places and thicker in other places. There are areas that I'll need to drop-fill with more goop and there are places I may just have to accept as imperfect. I believe they call this having character.
As this is the first time I've bound a guitar in five years and the first time I've used plastic binding in seven years - I'll chalk this one up as a learning experience.
