Looking for 512 neck binding

[Ginridge]

Hi Folks,

I recently was asked to restore a 1974 Guild 512 with a damaged bridge and a section of the binding missing from the neck. I was astonished to actually locate a new old stock bridge for this guitar. Bridges were 1" wide by 6" long on that particular guitar, modern Guild 12 string bridges are about 1/2" larger in both directions. I am now faced with the issue of the missing binding.

The 512 features a very complex piece of binding, a white, black/white/black, white pattern with the center black/white/black extremely thin. See the attached pic. I have not seen anything like this and, so far, have not even seen the extremely thin material to make it myself. I need just over 10" of this binding and would gladly pay for some if it was available anywhere. I would also gladly buy old scraps if anyone has re-done an old binding that matches. I have asked Guild but was told they don't use this anymore and don't know where to find anything like it.

I know this is a long shot, but I've had longer shots come in on occaision! If I am unable locate or reproduce that pattern, I may have to graft in plain white binding just to make the guitar playable, but I'd hate to do that. Thanks in advance for any advice you can share.

 

[GardMan]

Disclaimer: I am not a luthier, so have no idea about the feasibility of my suggestions. Also, I sometimes value playability and aesthetics over originality. That said, f you can't source or fabricate binding to match the original on the neck...

What sort of binding was used on the back? Grafting on plain white binding on the bass side of the neck would be pretty glaring and obvious to the player... something that I (if I owned and played the guitar) personally might find off-putting. If the same W/B/W/B/W binding was used on the back, I might CONSIDER pulling the binding off the back and using it to restore the neck, then re-binding the back with either plain white, or a simpler (but available) binding that might visually approximate the original. Don't know if you could then spot finish the "new" binding with an aged lacquer to cut the "glare" of the new binding?

Just a thought... with no idea of how feasible, time-consuming, or costly it might be to accomplish.

 

[chazmo]

Good luck with the hunt for binding material, Ginridge. I think this post belongs in our "tech" forum, so I'll move it there.

 

[Ginridge]

Thanks, chazmo. I looked for an appropriate place but didn't find one that seemed obvious. I hoped you'd steer me to the proper spot!

Gardman, Not a bad idea, (I'm a big fan of stealing purfling from under fingerboard extensions) but the binding on the sides is completely different. Believe me, I don't want to use plain white material, but if I have to, I'll use fish glue to install it so it can always be removed if the right material shows up.

 

[Opsimath]

This thought is really dumb as I'm not a luthier and I don't play one on TV (Who gets that reference to a very old TV commercial?), but if you have to use white could it be pinstriped to resemble the original?

 

[GardMan]

This thought is really dumb as I'm not a luthier and I don't play one on TV (Who gets that reference to a very old TV commercial?), but if you have to use white could it be pinstriped to resemble the original?

I saw a frank ford post where he did just that... Drew lines with pen and ink (Sharpe?). But I think that was over a distance of < 1". Think it would be hard to do well over 10".... I think I'd also worry about durability.

 

[GuildFS4612CE]

Surprised no one has suggested contacting Hans...you never know what he might have in his parts drawers

 

[Ginridge]

And how might I contact Hans? I expect that if I do find this or something similar, it will come out of someones special drawer of odd ball parts and pieces!

 

[FNG]

Contact Hans via his website: http://www.guitarchives.nl/

Here's a thread Hans recently started ...

Drawer of the month

Re. Maybe I should start a 'Drawer of the Month' thread? That could last 3 years for this part of the workbench! OK, I threatened to do this in somebody else's 'For Sale' thread, so here's a try-out! Let's see if there are more people than 'just me', who get excited about these kind of things...

letstalkguild.com

 

[Ginridge]

Thanks for the advice. I did contact Hans and he had one piece of binding which he didn't want to sell (I certainly don't blame him). He also agreed that it's extremely unlikely that I'll find any more. The lack of binding on the neck made it unplayable, and this is a magnificent guitar in very good shape. The owner just wanted me to make the instrument playable again and wasn't concerned a bout an exact restoration. So I came up with a work around solution.

While I couldn't locate the actual material, I did find a single band of White Black White binding that looked about right for a single black line. This was actually a vertical binding that I cut a strip of and placed sideways, then added on another layer of plain white binding above it. This involved a lot of pre-cutting, careful gluing then scraping to get the binding to fit and level with the neck and fingerboard. While not a perfect replacement, it did work to make the guitar playable again and the single black line does fool the eye somewhat. The glue line is slightly visible adding in the illusion of the second line. I considered "painting" a black edge to the white binding before gluing it to give it the appearance of a second black line, but ultimately decided not to because I was concerned that it would bleed into the white material.



While certainly not the perfect result I'd like to have done, this essentially did the job and made the guitar playable once again. I used fish glue to create the binding and hold it in place so that should the correct material ever show up somewhere, this can easily be removed and replaced with the real stuff. I'll add a bit of french polish to yellow the freshly scrapped binding and string it up.

 

[chazmo]

Nice, Ginridge. Not bad!

 

[Christopher Cozad]

My apologies, as I am a bit late to the party...

It is a rather involved and tedious process, but replacement binding can be made from individual components available from StewMac.com. In fact, it was a Guild employee who suggested I pursue this, as the company was unwilling to provide me with whatever they use, at any price.

I have re-bound more than one Guild 12 string in this manner. The link below will take you to a section of a lengthy article I wrote on a recent 12 string overhaul. This provides details of how I do it:

Prepping for Binding