Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

[beaner]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

> there's a reason why binding over frets is associated with high end guitars.

> uh.. why?

> it seemed like i was always getting the high E to catch in the groove

That's why. Binding over frets takes more skill to do, *when it's done correctly*. There shouldn't be a groove to catch the string. To the player, it should be transparent. It's supposed to be just an asthetics thing. If it changes the way you play, it's not done well.

[StukaJU87]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

Originally posted by j2379:
it seemed like i was always getting the high E to catch in the groove.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">I find that with my JCF01 and LP Custom also, but it doesn't cause me enough worry to consider ever altering them.

[sully]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

i do drop a bit of super glue to fill the gaps to avoid the strings geting caught. granted, the tips wear down like frets do, but that's a quick fix for ya.

not sure if i'd agree with the less fret material impacting sustain; i'd figure that the missing wood for the binding channel (over or under frets) would have a bigger impact. either way, i doubt that it's anything that anyone would notice.

sully

[delt]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

&gt; I don't recall where I read it, but I once saw the
&gt; binding over frets described as the lazy way of doing it.

Same here. Most luthiers and guitarists i talked to don't like it either, and they say it's a lazy work-around for not having to do the job properly (ie. frets over binding)

and there's no way fretting a string on the binding plastic will give you the same sound as the fret. Plus you have the mark between the two, even if there's no gap, that causes an annoying "toink" sound every time you bend the string over it.

[Budman68]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

Originally posted by beaner:

&gt; it seemed like i was always getting the high E to catch in the groove

That's why. Binding over frets takes more skill to do, *when it's done correctly*. There shouldn't be a groove to catch the string. To the player, it should be transparent. It's supposed to be just an asthetics thing. If it changes the way you play, it's not done well.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Actually, I could see this happening very easily since the binding material/glue will definitely wear alot faster than the actual fret. Sure you could keep "filling" the gap that is created over time but nevertheless it will still wear the binding material faster. I agree as far as the asthetics idea that there should be no gap to begin with.... [img]images/icons/smile.gif[/img]

[Jim Shine]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

Nope, the binding over the frets is the harder and longer way of doing it. Which is why it costs more to have this style done. It requires more labor. When you set the fret over the binding, you level down the binding all at once with a scraper and fine tune with a radius sanding block. Then the tang is clipped off the ends of the fret and set in.

The nibs method requires scraping down the binding between each fret, not in the long strokes. You can level a whole unfretted bound neck in maybe 5 minutes. The nibs method takes about an hour to get down and fine tune. More care is also needed to make each uniform in shape as it is easy to place a different angle when hand shaping fret to fret, so it looks uneven.

Refretting nibs guitars is very hard compared to over the binding as well. The fret has to be ground to the exact same size as the old fret so there are no gaps if undersized or pop the binding off if too wide.

[delt]

Re: Installing neck bindings - which glue... ?

&gt; To me its a lot eaiser to form the binding over the
&gt; fret end than to hand round each fret end.

It's something you have to do on a no-bining neck anyway.