bending ebony - it's a snap!

[Mark McLean]

I am having lots of grief bending ebony bindings for my number 3 build. I am using a Ibex bending iron and I have had no problems in the past with maple, cocobolo and mahogany. These ebony strips are 2mm thick by 6mm wide (came from StewMac or LMI, can't remember which). I have tried thinning them down to about 1.5mm, I tried hotter, drier, wetter, and also wood softener (the Rivergum brand). Still snap a lot. I can get suitable bends for the waist and bouts but this guitar has a soft cutaway and I also want to bind the headstock which has some moderately tight curves.

I have read that ebony is often a bugger to bend. And maybe this batch of wood is troublesome (yeah, I am sure it is the wood's fault - not mine!). Any tips? Nick - you make ebony bindings look like flowing silk; what is the secret?

[Dennis Leahy]

The problem: Relatively small, gnarly trees cut into rectangular planks - the orientation of the grain is then nearly impossible to see in all that black-on-black.

It probably is the wood. Very Happy

I was just talking to Grant Goltz about this, and he said he likes to buy Ebony boards that have a crack. Following (but of course not including) the crack leads to binding strips that have very little runout.

If you don't have that luxury, be prepared to bend many to get few. CA glue is your friend, (possibly with some Ebony dust, if necessary), and repaired splices can be impossible to find.

Good luck.

Dennis
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Another damn Yank!

[Taffy Evans]

When bending difficult binding on my iron I use a steel slat on the out side of the binding, I press this slat against the binding which in turn is forced against the hot iron. Don't know about the Ebony tho, with grain direction issues.
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Taff

[Dominic]

Mark, you probably don't have a bending machine but I have bent quite a few SM ebony bindings in my jig with no problems. I also use a little super soft in my sprayer just in case. The hardest wood to bend so far has been bloodwood which just wanted to snap everywhere even in the jig.
If the bindings have enough support behind them, like a S steel slat as you bend them over the iron, that should help a lot. I don't like the idea of bending 10 bits of ebony to get 4 bent bindings. Surely that tree didn't grow all those years to become mainly broken bindings in your scrap drawer. There has to be a better way.
Another problem I have found with ebony is that once finished it is so black and shiny that it could be plastic. Kind of defeats the purpose of carefully bending wood bindings. But at least "we know" they are wood.
Perhaps its time to make a bending jig and get a heat blanket.
Anyway, good luck.
Dom
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You can bomb the world to pieces,
but you can't bomb the world to peace!

[Nick]

Hi Mark, funny you should bring this up as I have just finished binding one of my latest with Ebony (same dimensions as yours). Got it from Bob C and it really is beautiful stuff to look at, black as your hat but a bugger to bend & once it was bent it was as brittle as, one piece even snapped on me as I was gluing on!
I too use the Ibex style heating iron and the first couple of pieces became my guinea pigs as I played around with heat settings, wet/ dry e.t.c. What I found to be the best technique (& it may not be the only way but worked for me and one was a tight radius bend) was to have my bending iron on the same heat setting as I do for all the other wood I bend (Usually the dial is sitting on 6), I then spray water on both sides of the binding, I put a reasonable amount on. I don't think it acted as a steaming agent on the internal fibres so much but I used it more as a temperature indicator at the wood's surface. I put the binding up against the iron and held it reasonably close either side of the bend/point of contact so the pressure was focussed more where I needed it. Without putting any pressure on it at this stage I just left it there, when the water had evaporated from both sides of the binding it was hot enough to start applying a small amount of pressure, but only do it slowly, feel what the Ebony wants to do, let it bend at it's own rate. If you have a tight bend to do (such as the outer bend of a cutaway) then I also found that pressing a small piece of MDF of scrap wood against the binding at the point of contact with the iron just stops any tendency for the Ebony to break or split out. Just take your time & don't force it is the secret I think.It can take a while to do but at least you aren't left with a pile of short, slightly curved broken bits Wink Also on the lower bout bends where the radius is bigger I used the side of the iron and I found that the preceding bend put enough heat into the wood that as you move along, each bit is preheated to some extent by the previous bend so it goes a bit quicker.

img~

Dominic wrote:
Another problem I have found with ebony is that once finished it is so black and shiny that it could be plastic. Kind of defeats the purpose of carefully bending wood bindings. But at least "we know" they are wood.

Just what I thought after spending hours bending the stuff and gluing it on, then I 'wet' it to see what it looked like against the woods around it and thought "looks like plastic, why did I bother?" Laughing But I'll make a point of telling the customer that it is real wood & not plastic so just be a bit more careful with it! Wink
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A handmade Guitar for $300 ? Phftt. Sure, give me a chunk of wood, a hammer & some 6 inch nails & I'll see what I can knock up for ya.

Nick Oliver
http://www.oliver-guitars.com

[graham mcdonald]

A fellow bouzouki builder in the US once confessed that he used to use ebony bindings until he realised that, under a finish, you couldn't actually see any difference between ebony and black ABS plastic Very Happy

cheers
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Graham McDonald
www.mcdonaldstrings.com

[Kim]

I am with Graham on this one, under a finish you can't tell the difference between quality uniform ebony and black plastic. If anything, 'plastic' is a superior choice because it seals the endgrain of the top and back plates at least as effectivly as wood and it is more impact resistant being the point of bindings. On top of that it is a breeze to install.

If any recall my Matey F111 build, I used plastic for the body bindings and mitered ebony pieces against them with metal glued to the back for the neck pocket so they could be held in place with magnets, you can't pick it.

Cheers

Kim
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ĆϾϿƆ
_(ӧ) ∩
_ڔ ڔ
Pull me Finga

[Nick]

Yeah I went plastic with the Selmers. Started out with all good intentions of binding with Ebony but because the shape of a Selmer/Maccaferri is such a 3D shape, it was an absolute bastard to get the stuff bent enough to conform not only to the outline but the barrelled shape of the top, so I ended up chucking the one attempt I had made and stuck plastic on it. Went alot easier and quicker. Just went with Ebony on this latest one as it's going to be a bit of a show pony and if the owner tells people "that's real wood", it may score some extra brownie points in the quality stakes.
_________________
A handmade Guitar for $300 ? Phftt. Sure, give me a chunk of wood, a hammer & some 6 inch nails & I'll see what I can knock up for ya.

Nick Oliver
http://www.oliver-guitars.com

[sebastiaan56]

And here I was thinking I was the only loser who couldnt bend a stoopid bit of Ebony Laughing

Im giving up on the stuff, after only one botched instrument, life is too short for that shit. Chips when you wave a chisel near it, wont bend with any sort of consistency, covers the universe with black dust when you sand it, tears out even with a really sharp scraper. And it looks like plastic when you are done, Im doing a Rudd on my limited stash if anyone is interested. PM me, I may as well turn it into timber I like.
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make mine fifths........

[tim mullin]

I dunno, I'm kinda digging ebony bindings as I'm using them for the first time on a Malaysian blackwood OM. Got them from Allied, I can't fault the quality -- yes, they're pretty black, but that's what the client wants. Was expecting trouble with bending and ordered extra. Good thing.

The first 4 pieces went into the Fox-style bender with the herringbone and other purfling, and came out cracked and broken. I only then had the sense to measure the stuff. Virtually all of the other binding I've got in stock measures around 0.090" (2.3mm), but this stuff was a fat 0.100" (2.5mm). So, some pieces went through the sander to thin them to 0.075" (1.9mm) and then back to the bender. Made up the package with a little more water, and brought the heat up to over 300°F (150°C) -- I heard that ebony needs lots of heat.

This time, the bindings look as good as any I've ever bent! In fact, they're perfect and fit beautifully.

[graham mcdonald]

Another way to do it would be to thin them down to 1mm and use twice as many. I did that a few years ago for an F5 mandolin where the client wanted rosewood bindings and that was the only way I figured I could do it around the scroll. You couldn't see the lamination when finished

cheers
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Graham McDonald
www.mcdonaldstrings.com

[Taffy Evans]

I mixed ebony with plastic on this guitar, and as already mentioned you could not tell the difference.

img~
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Taff

[Mark McLean]

I cannot tell you how much better you have all made me feel!
I do like the look of a black-as-the-ace-of-spades set of bindings on the right guitar. And I would prefer to use "real wood" instead of plastic. However, all of this discussion gives me some perspective. I'll try with the pieces of ebony that I have left and the tips provided here and see how it all goes. But I will have a Plan-B ready if it all ends as shattered black twisties. When I post some pictures of this guitar finished you will know straight away what happened! Thanks for sharing.

[Pete Howlett]

Heres a heresy Smile I have never understood the attraction of wood bindings. You often want them highly figured and they are a real pain to execute. I note that as soon as plastic became workable and available both Gibson and Martin were on it and have never looked back! On a more paractical note, plastic makes a far better shock absorber than wood.

So I duck right out of this one and use, almost exclusively, plastic. Now if I could just get some of that funky stuff they use for pen blanks in decent lengths...
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Make 'em. Play 'em!

[Allen]

What product are the locals using for glueing the plastic bindings on with? I've got a repair to do for a fellow that is going to require attempting to match up what's already there.
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Allen R. McFarlen

[Taffy Evans]

In many many years as a repairman, I have had to replace a fair bit of plastic binding on older guitars. I cant remember many wood ones, thats why I like to use wood, and the fact that it adds a feature to my instruments that most others hanging on store racks the don't have. I have used plastic but do not enjoy using it. Each to his/her own I suppose, theres some great sounding guitars out there with plastic bindings.
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Taff

[Kim]

Allen,

I have always used weldbond. I did find some local a few years back but for the life of me I cannot remember where...may have even been bunnings.

Cheers

Kim
_________________
ĆϾϿƆ
_(ӧ) ∩
_ڔ ڔ
Pull me Finga

[graham mcdonald]

Weldbond 16. You can usually get it from sheet acrylic fabricators. In a red tube about the size of a large tube of toothpaste, and will cost around $20. The trick is to glue the bindings and then leave it for 24 hours to let the solvents evaporate. The bindings will actually swell a little from the glue and they need to re-stabilize. Alternatively CA glue will hold plastic binding, but it is a brittle joint and I don't trust it. Americans often recommend Duco cement, which you might find in a shop which sells stuff for RC model planes, or, if you can't find anything else Tarzan's Grip will glue celluloid/ABS binding, but it doesn't seem to set up as hard as Weldbond, as if there might be some soft plastic residue left. Bunnings does have one or two other similar glues to Tarzan's Grip, ie solvent based cements, but I haven't tried them.

cheers

graham
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Graham McDonald
www.mcdonaldstrings.com

[Nick]

Allen, if you go to any plastic's trade supplier they should have an Acetone based clear glue that does the job (think a 'standard' Acrylics glue surfices). Always takes me back to my childhood when I use the stuff, and memories of gluing up my plastic models with Airfix glue.
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A handmade Guitar for $300 ? Phftt. Sure, give me a chunk of wood, a hammer & some 6 inch nails & I'll see what I can knock up for ya.

Nick Oliver
www.oliver-guitars.com

[tim mullin]

Incorrect info -- deleted post -- sorry!

Last edited by Tim Mullin on Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:10 pm; edited 1 time in total

[kiwigeo]

Nick O wrote:


Always takes me back to my childhood when I use the stuff, and memories of gluing up my plastic models with Airfix glue.

Yeah those kits were fun...and the glue was alot cheaper than dope.
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One can never have enough tonewood

[DarwinStrings]

Weldon 16 is available here http://allstarplastics.com.au/shop/shop ... rylic+Glue. I think the "Weldbond" that you have linked to Tim is a PVA, not sure though ( I have a cabinet maker mate who reckon it is the best PVA you can get). It is interesting that Weldon recommend their Weldon 40 and Weldon 10 for wood but the 16 works and that is what Stewy Mac sells.

Jim

[Lillian]

For plastic to wood, I've always used Duco.

http://www.itwconsumer.com/productfiles/tech_195.pdf

[tim mullin]

Toejam wrote:
Weldon 16 is available here [url]I think the "Weldbond" that you have linked to Tim is a PVA, not sure though ( I have a cabinet maker mate who reckon it is the best PVA you can get).

Oops, I think you're right, Jim, so I deleted the post. Did another google here in NZ for "weldon" (not "weldbond") and found http://www.glueguru.co.nz/shop.php?func ... dddb78fc2c, so hoefully I've redeemed myself. Not the kind of stuff that you can cross borders with, so a local source is essential.

Lillian: Duco is a North American brand -- I know it well from my glue-snif... err, I mean, my model-building youth. I failed in earlier attempts to find the stuff in NZ, but just found a site online selling the stuff out of Auckland:
http://www.te.co.nz/Hobbies-Crafts/Mode ... 739937.htm

Tim

Last edited by Tim Mullin on Fri Jul 23, 2010 2:22 pm; edited 1 time in total

[DarwinStrings]

That is a interesting one Lillian, it says it is a "nitro cellulose" glue. It also says it's no good for polyethylene or polypropylene so don't use it on your "rope" bindings Rolling Eyes

Jim