So, as discussed in the previous two posts, the last sessions were spent on installing the binding around the edges of the guitar. The result on the top was pretty spiffy:

Top with binding and purfling

Cleary visible in the picture is the residue from the glue. So I got to work with the trusty cabinet scraper to remove the glue, and scrape the binding flush with the sides.

All went well for about five minutes until just about half of the back binding came off! As it turned out, the combination of the glue, the binding material and the rosewood was an unfortunate one. They simply hadn’t attached properly. At closer inspection, the top binding and purfling also didn’t stick. Disaster! Two nights of work gone (a month!), and I was left with a soundbox with messy binding channels filled with dry and hardened glue…

After the Great The Weld-on Disaster

Only one sensible option here: route the channels clean and start over… After cleaning up we opted for a different ivoroid binding material and used CA (super)glue instead of the Weld-on cement. A test piece showed it stuck properly so by the end of the night, the new back binding was installed. Look two posts back for pictures, it looks much the same.

Definitely a shame, but in all honesty, the new binding material looks better and I managed to install it much cleaner. Fingers crossed for next session and let’s hope this was the last surprise for this guitar.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Building procedures. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.