A Binding Question?

[kiwinoz62]

Hi everyone,

Who out there in the forum makes their own binding/purfling or just buys from a reputable source?
I have sourced this stuff on the local market & overseas, Gurian has some nice binding but the postage just kills doing business, eBay USA has some quality products, which appear to be the less expensive option.

Does' anyone make their own binding & willing to share their secrets,
or is it just as expensive to make rather than buy pre-made?

Cheers Wayne. . .

[Craig]

G'day Wayne,

I made a set for my current project and attached side purfling to them .The only reason I made my own was so I could have binding the same wood as my back and sides.

I sliced them on my bandsaw and put them through my drum sander to have uniform thickness and width . I made up a quick glue-up jig to attach the side purfling which basically involved a heap of those little colouful spring- clamps you get from Bunnings.

After making these ones , I can't help but feel the ready made ones are extremely cheap

[Allen]

I make most of my own bindings and have made many of my own purflings, but have a stock of the standard purfling patterns and colors that I've got from Gurian.

The best way to get stuff from Gurian is to do an order and split it with a mate to cover postage. If you are going to be doing a few instruments, it's way cheaper to do it this way than buying enough for just one instrument at a time.

To make your own bindings it dead easy. Just set up your saw of choice, either band saw or table saw and rip away. Then run through the drum sander to your final dimensions.

[woodrat]

Like Allen and others I make my own binding. One thing that is good about it is that you can use flatsawn timber.If you have a nice figured flat or backsawn board about 800+ mm long you can saw and plane it to 1/4 inch or a touch over 6mm and then just rip off the binding from the edge and it will be nicely quartersawn. I use a bandsaw and a fence and then dimension through the sander to 2 or 2.1mm. A one inch board will easily split and give you 3 billets and if its only 2 or 3 inches wide you will yield enough binding for many guitars.

[Allen]

I should add that I always cut my sides exactly to size and all the off cut is saved for binding material. It's always close to final thickness and is usually a very nice wood to start off with. It will be put into the stash and used on another instrument down the track.

You can almost always get enough off cut from each side set to rip 2 bindings. So you get a set of 4 for the next instrument with no extra cost to you.

[J.F. Custom]

Yep, mostly make my own too.

As Craig eluded to though, it's not with the aim to save money. I make them so as I can select the exact combo of timbers; species; colours; grain; figure etc to tie together the whole instrument visually. Making your own also allows you to bookmatch them should you wish. Highly unlikely you will get bookmatched sets when purchased off the shelf.

Making them is easy if you have, or have access to, a drum sander. Would be far more time consuming and painful without one, but possible with a hand plane or scrapers.

I add my own bottom edge purfling to my bindings prior to ripping. This allows me to glue two larger pieces together - much less fiddly work than gluing to the small section of binding. Then I rip it down, thickness sand all pieces together to maintain even thickness, then bend as per sides. The glue doesn't (or hasn't for me) delaminate during bending. I also find that binding bends best (with less potential pitfalls) when laid out side by side as though one larger flat piece in the side bender.

For purfling alone, again I glue up larger pieces if it is a multiple timber lamination. I will then often use my Japanese saw to rip down the tiny pieces - less waste and better control for this fine operation to me.

Finally, it pays to mention here to make at least one extra piece if not more. So choose your original stock size to allow for more pieces than strictly necessary. Rip and sand them all together. In the unfortunate event of a break therefore, you are prepared with extra of exactly matching pieces. It is a pain to have to make just one more piece to match due to an unforeseen break. If it doesn't, then you've got spares to put aside for another day.

Hope it helps. Good luck.

[Steve]

Jeremy, what glue do you use - not that I've had trouble with purfling delaminating, just haven't known how to tackle this one?
Thanks,
Steve

[J.F. Custom]

Hi Steve,

For timber to timber in this application, I just use Titebond Original. Works well.

Cheers,

Jeremy.

[Allen]

I use hide glue and have never had a problem either.

[Steve]

Thanks Allen - that gives me another option. The last time that I bent some binding/purflings, I thought that I got a whiff of something more araldite-ish when things got a bit warm. Nice to know that I can go with the options that I've got at hand.
Steve

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