Finishing Bindings

[Andrew Armstrong]

Hi, Sorry if this has been covered before but I didn't turn up anything with a search. I am about to re-finish a semi-acoustic similar to a Gibson ES-335 with edge bindings and sound hole bindings. I want a clear tinted finish ala gibson cherry red and I'm looking for advice on how to get the colour on the wood and not on the bindings.

Thanks Andrew

[Woodrow Brackett]

Tape the bindings. You can get narrow tape from most auto paint stores. You'll likely get some bleed through the tape at places. After you're done with your color coats remove the tape, scrape the binding clean, then apply your top clear coats. It takes time and patience.

[Andrew Armstrong]

Thanks Woodrow,

I had a feeling that might be the answer (and I've got some of the tape) - was hoping that there might be a less tim consuming option - but life isn't like that, is it?

I wonder what the production houses do?

[Woodrow Brackett]

I'd love it if someone would post an easier way, but it's not that bad. To tape it off I just tape all the way around with tape that's wider than the binding/purfling, then take a gramil and carefully cut the tape right at the inside edge of the purfling. You have to be careful to not cut into the top (or back) though. Like I said, I always get a few places that bleed a little, and sometimes the edge isn't as defined as I'd like. Scraping it just takes a little patience, but it's not hard.

[Andrew Porter]

I'm in the same position. I was wondering if I could use a stain that would penetrate the wood but not the binding which is plastic in my case.

[Greg Robinson]

Most wood dyes will not penetrate plastic bindings, so if you're staining the wood directly, you should be able to get away with staining the wood, and then a light scraping of the bindings if necessary, although you'll need a very steady hand to avoid damaging the stained wood.
A better bet would be to clear coat the whole guitar, and then use painters/striping tape to cover the bindings before spraying a tinted coat, and then scraping the bindings clean, topping everything off with more clear.

Good luck.

[Craig Bumgarner]

My situation is a bit different but still deals with the difficulty of keeping color out of the wood bindings. I don't normally stain so I'm not highly experienced with in guitar finishing, but I have a request to make unfinished mahogany back and sides a dark walnut color. My standard finish is epoxy grain fill and sprayed marine varnish, polished. The binding is black fiber with wood WBW purfling. My thinking is to stain the mahogany b/s, but how do I keep the stain out of the purfling? Taping the wood purfling off well enough to keep alcohol based stain out of the maple purfling seems hopeless and I only get one chance to do it well.

I have heard of shellacking the bindings first, but even that seems risky. Yet, I'm pretty are this problem has been worked long before. On the other hand maybe i should stain the purflings as well and be done with it. Thoughts?

[Denny Boyce]

In case you haven't seen it, Stewmac presented a video on how to get clean bindings in their trade secrets a few months back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNbsZsSabPs

[Craig Bumgarner]

That's a very good video, lots of good ideas. I note he is working on a single piece plastic binding, not sure how well what he is doing translates to wood binding with purfling.

I tried lots of things on scrape. One problem is the bubinga itself turns splotchy when stained directly. The back and sides are laminated and I have left over veneer to practice on. Stain, epoxy or varnish applied directly to the wood results in dark splotches. Shellac though seems to be okay, so I taped off the bubinga and epoxy sealed the bindings and purflings and then shellacked the bubinga. So far so good. The best looking toned finish I've found so far is K9 water based lacquer tone with Stewmac's Colortone tint. I've used K9 before and though it is not my favorite finish, it is not bad and will do in this case. I might try scraping the the bindings after I get my color coats on if they become too opaque. I am hopefull the epoxy will give me a good base to scrape against similar to the plastic binding in the video. Wish me luck.