Andyjr1515

Great close up photos on thst second ebay one! But they are not fret pullers. The pullers need to get under a seated fret both sides, so the jaws are ground down to almost knife sharpness at the ends and a flat, even surface at the fretboard contact point. These are standard string / wire cutters, shown in use in one of the photos.

Looks pretty good to me

OK - this is where I have to repeat the warning to folks who may not have seen my other builds - and especially any 'beginner' builders. It is simply this. My threads describe how I personally go about things - and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Generally I detail both. They are statements of how I have done things but are never - and will never be - statements of 'this is how it should be done.' I am essentially a bedroom builder and quite often - through necessity or because I have difficulties with the way most builders do things - I go about things differently to the 'conventional' way. When they work, no one is more surprised than me . So by all means try things the same way if you think that it will work in your particular situation - but please NEVER assume I know what I'm doing! So Ironing on binding. (See what I mean ) I've got to that age where I forget things - and when I did the binding for the top, I had forgotten that I once did binding a different way which suited me much, much better. Those of you who have followed any of my veneering threads (or saw my demo at the last Midlands Bass Bash) know that I use Evostick wood glue as an iron-on adhesive. And I tried it once on binding. So here goes again! Basically - other than the iron and a pair of gloves - this is the kit. No bicycle inner tubes in sight (quick snap of the local kids in the street ) - I paint a thin but complete coat of the PVA onto the binding channel - including the bottom edge (important) - then I do the same with the binding (again including the bottom edge) - I let it dry (15-20mins but once dry this will work even days later). You can tell it's dry because it goes clear. - and then I iron it on. I use an old heatshrink iron myself simply because MrsAndyjr1515 goes apes**t if I use her iron - but any hot iron (used dry) will do. - note no fibreglass reinforced tape. No bicycle inner tubes. AND THIS IS COMPETELY NON-TIME DEPENDANT so even here - halfway through, I can go for a coffee and comeback and carry on!!!! Basically, I position the binding in the slot and run the iron back and forward over the flat side of the binding, say, a couple of inches at a time. After 30 secs or so, I then hold the binding firm against the flat side and pressing it down to properly bottom to the channel floor (hence the gloves!) for 10 secs or so until the glue has sufficiently cooled to re-solidify the glue. - Note also IT IS COMPLETELY REPEATABLE. If after it's cooled, you realise say that there's a bit of a gap, you just iron it again until the glue melts and press it firm until it cools - once it has cooled, then it won't move again unless you re-iron it. So you don't need tape. The 6" attached above is the finished job! - once the whole length is attached, you can immediately start scraping / sanding / chiselling. There is no further glue setting time. - which is what I did. The binding on the right is where I was 1/2hr after the above photo: - and, ignoring the rookie tearout on the back wood mentioned in an earlier post, here's what the other side of the joint came out like: This method suits me personally much. much more than the first method. Just got to remember if there is ever a next time to do it this way next time!

Fingers crossed, Andy. A real sh**ty experience on many fronts.

Blimey! I don't know what to be most impressed with - the productivity or the quality. Well - take your pick, then: that is insanely good/quick @Christine

Yes - going for a gin means communicating with MrsAndyjr1515 after I've been hiding in the cellar all day doing this stuff...

With a touch of Post Traumatic Binding Stress Disorder creeping in, I rock-hopped back to the neck and did a bit more on the heel. Still more to do to get a more interesting visual effect and get it looking a little slimmer, but it's starting to get there. I also remembered the final "once you've spent all that time joining the body parts and thicknessing them and fitting the braces and tap tuning the top and sorting the kerf strip and sorting the join shapes and cutting the soundhole and making the rosette and fitting it and the purfling around it and gluing the top on and fitting the back on and routing the binding slots and fitting the purfling and bending the binding and gluing it and stretching the fibreglass tape and next door neighbours kids bicycle tyres round then fixing the bits that didn't quite work and scraping the bits flush that did" - yes, after all THAT then..."You need to clamp the complete large dreadnought body somehow without crushing it and rout a large slot through the sides into the neck block with the hand router that you wreck most other things you use it on and which, if it is the slightest bit out alignment in any of the three planes, will render the guitar unfinishable." Hmmm...I think I might just go and have a gin instead.

Well - the results are largely OK for the top. A couple of places where it is a little bit iffy - and I had to heat a couple of the areas with and iron and clamp them properly down to the sides, but this is the sort of look it gives: The above looks OK but, I think binding of an acoustic sorts the men from the boys - and at the very best - I reckon I'm at the petulant adolescent stage, if that. For me, it's too hit and miss. But - curses to poor memory - fixing those couple of bits with the iron (which softened the PVA enough to be able to ease the miscreant binding into position and held until it glued - reminded me that a couple of years ago, I tried a completely different approach to binding - that worked! It was on this re-body of a Peavey EVH I did - where I wanted to put a similar type of binding on upside down to give me a feature line from the thin maple bar: The challenge here was that ANY misalignment would have meant sanding down - and potentially losing - the feature line. So I simply couldn't risk the 'strap it all up and hope for the best' approach. And so I came up with the crazy notion "Why don't I do it like I do veneering - iron it on! And that's what I tried - and it worked!!! And then I forgot all about doing that. So for the back binding - today's little least favourite job - that's what I'm going to do. If it works, I'll show you the shots of the technique (or just look up one of my veneering threads - it's exactly the same). If it doesn't work, I'll quietly sweep the idea under the carpet and get the inner tubes out again

Yup - nice contour My vote would always be mop over celluloid and the sizes don't look out of place to me - but what matters is what matters to you, not me @honza992

No - the fit wouldn't be anywhere tight enough or accurate enough (certainly with any mould I made myself )

Binding acoustics is probably amongst my least favourite tasks of anything to do with building guitars and basses. It's a lot of faff and my confidence of getting a fully successful outcome is slim. Nevertheless, it has to be done - so to prepare the binding channel I used a chisel, a scraper and also made a mini sanding block: Having double and triple checked the body itself for continuity, squareness and clear corners, it was ready to start to bend the binding over the bending iron. Again, like the sides, I used the body mould to clamp the bindings in while they dried: Then checked the fit again and set about gluing the first set. This is where it has to be firm against the guitar top AND the sides. And it has to be square. And the dry binding is springy and quite stiff. So, it requires at least two extra techniques to try to achieve that for the hour or so before the glue is set. First, fibre-glass reinforced tape - pulling the binding into place pretty much as hard as you can. Masking tape or similar would simply rip under the strain: Then, after running round another couple of times pressing the binding very firmly to ensure full contact at the edge and the bottom of the binding, out come the bicycle inner tubes - and really it needs more than this... ...but the next door neighbour's kids might get suspicious if I steal any more wheels off their bikes...

I'll do an update in a little while, but just checking imgur - anyone had any issues recently? Yesterday couldn't log in at all, and then today, I can get in but a number of images missing and it stalls when I try to add a new image. Just posting this old image to see if it actually posts OK (this is the binding strip I'm in the middle of adding to the body: OK - that worked.... Anyway, for the post, I'll download the images directly. Back in a bit ***Post post - just found an imgur status update on twitter. They have done a major maintenance exercise and there are issues at the moment updating new images - so it's not just me.

I'm talking about pressing in a depression to locate the tiny drill and stop it wandering. As you say, bradawls and the like are far too big

Beautiful job

And the top is successfully routed, including the additional slot for the b/w/b purfling lining strip: So I declare my unofficial mod to Stewmac's dubious tool A SUCCESS! And now there is no excuse but to start the tortuous binding process. Luckily, the purfling - which is applied first - is fairly easy. It's bendy enough to fit round the perimeter and be held by tape while the titebond is setting. Note, by the way, that I've given the top a couple of coats of protective varnish. This keeps the dirt from soaking in, stops the scratches and dints to an extent and - most of all - allows tape like this to be used without the risk of pulling the top surface away as the tape is removed. In their sanded state, the tops are very delicate things...: The binding is quite another matter. It will need: - pre-bending, just like the sides - a long length of joined together bicycle inner tubes - luck - a following wind Luckily, I'm tied up tomorrow so have a day to build up the courage

OK - major scary bit number 1. Routing the body binding channels. Why is it scary? Well, as far as I'm concerned - because it is using a router - because it is using a router on a pretty much finished body with all that work already done and a top and a back pretty thin and pretty much thinned to within 0.1mm of it's final size - the above, then remembering that the top is dished, and varying radii to the dish centre all the way round - the above and noting that the binding channel is as deep as the sides are thick - the above and then remembering that it is the BOTTOM of the routed slot that has to be accurate all the way round the body Other than that, it's a walk in the park There is a rig that the multi-acoustic builders sometimes invest in which is a large, complicated and quite expensive rig for a Bosh trimmer router - but I don't build many acoustics so can't really justify the cost and, besides, it's too big for my tiny workspace and storage area. Then there's this from Stewmac to fit onto a Dremel: Hmmm...the general view of this amongst builders I know is that it is rubbish. I've used one before - and I got away with it. But the risks of serious eyesore digs and unevenness in the binding joints is high to very high. And when I used it, there was quite a bit of judicious gap filling needed. The problem is that the top is dished. So the front edge of the jig doesn't (mustn't!) run along the edge of the guitar body - instead the back edge of the jig must. The Dremel - top heavy and while hitting the hard wood of the sides at 40,000 hits a minute - must be kept vertical (assuming the top is the other way up to the photo above - which is pretty impossible to use as photo'd) MANUALLY in both planes. When it tilts - even a smidgen, it digs in and that affects the depth and you get wavy lines at both join lines. So I had a think about it last night. And got a couple of strips of binding and some super glue out and stuck it on (honestly!) Could this act as a visual guide that the rig is parallel to the sides? Would it stay on long enough to prove the concept and then, if it helped, how would I stick it on properly? Well - and here you could knock me down with a feather. Because the concept worked: And it's even stayed glued for the full multi-pass rout of the back!!! And, it is even and wavy line free with only the very slightest amount of tidying up. OK - now it's time to wreck the top!

I'm going to set some time aside to read this properly! Hmmm...whetstone grinder...not got one...always wondered...

Wow! That is starting to look VERY nice

OK - so far so good. One of the things I've done before a few times is, in adding a couple of strips to bind the fretboard, I've used acoustic banding - rosewood with a b/w/b feature strip. This gives me a couple of advantages as well as the binding itself. It gives me a faux veneer feature demarcation line - which I always find to be a pain to do without any wavy lines using three pieces of actual veneer: The other advantage is that, before I trim it to the fretboard radius, it gives me a flat surface to use for the Dremel router base when I do the pair of 12th fret swift inlays (a job for this showery afternoon) The second thing is one I've never done before and might not work. Because the neck is an offcut, it isn't as deep a blank as I would usually use. As such, the heel needs three pieces to extend from the top of the body to the bottom. Three sections of maple stacked up is, at best going to catch the eye. At worst - eg with a tiny bit of offset of one of the walnut centre splice positions - it could look awful! So I'm trying with a section of decorative wood sandwiched in the middle: To make it look like I meant it to be there, I added an angle to that and the adjoining bottom block. I won't know if it really works until I rout the tenon and shape the heel - and there are a few things I need to do before I tackle those jobs - but it will be an interesting experiment

That looks brilliant! It's immensely satisfying playing a bass you've made yourself, isn't it! Welcome to the club

Been doing other stuff most of today but found an hour to do two things neck related - one I've done before and one I've never tried before: When it's all dry, I shall reveal both - unless they haven't worked, in which case I'll quietly bin them and do it differently

S'alright....I s'pose (Thinks - how the HELL am I going to be able to knobble him?????) " Moriarty - THINK OF SOMETHING!!!!!"

Hmmm... I think I am inclined to agree with @fryer - they are indeed amazing. And yes, so much nicer than a decal...and some!

Well - huge amount still to do, but definitely at the end of the beginning! The next bit on the body is getting a router out and routing the top and bottom binding channels. I might spend time on the neck before getting to that terrifying prospect!

Once the back is glued on is no time to remember that you've forgotten something so this is a time for a pause, note the remaining jobs, do them, pause again. Hopefully, I've paused enough times! First there's the cross-grain maple strip across the join line. Because the back has a double curvature as it slims from the main chamber to the neck, I let the glue for the strip set while bending in this direction by using a fillet underneath at the bend axis of the panel: Then the all important label In the past, I've marked the top at this stage or similar and - because it's pretty much final thickness, those can be difficult to get out. So for the clamping, I cut out a comprehensive set of clamp cauls, chamfered so that the edges don't dig in (fingers crossed!): And then - after one more fit check - the 'well, it's too late now' step :