Refretting a Guitar with "Contoured" Binding

[Barry Daniels]

Yep, the binding putty makes a good gap filler.

An option to trying to find binding material in a matching color is to start with white and tint it as needed.

[Brian Evans]

FWIW, whenever Les Paul got a new LP that he was going to actually play, he had it refretted to get rid of the nibs and have the frets extend across the binding before it was delivered to him. Not having the frets extend across the binding is a great example of how Gibson put economy and manufacturing expediency ahead of good guitar making. It's not a feature for me, it's just bad workmanship.

[Barry Daniels]

That's kind of funny.

I want a real Gibson with nibs and a break-away headstock.

[Bob Francis]

That's kind of funny.

I want a real Gibson with nibs and a break-away headstock.

That got coffee on my laptop!

[David King]

Fender did it too, at least on the transitional J basses with block inlays. Nibs are for ink pens not fingerboards.

[Michael McBroom]

OK, got a hopefully simple question about binding. My guitar's gonna need "cream" binding. StewMac sells "plastic" cream binding and LMI sells cream ABS binding. Is ABS gonna present a problem when trying to liquify it with Acetone? I guess I should probably go with StewMac's since they just call it plastic.

[Michael McBroom]

I'm sooooo confused! OK, never mind about my above question. I ordered the LMI binding because they offer free shipping whereas Stewmac wanted to ding me for $10. But will I mess with making nib putty from it? I don't knooooooow!

[Chuck Tweedy]

yes - you can make your plastic goo with ABS and acetone (tho I think ABS is dissolved more easily with MEK (which is nasty stuff))