ksquine
Active member
I want to make some rope binding for my next build. Any suggestions on glues that won't melt on a bending iron?
I made mine 2" wide, but that's not too important. I made it 14" long, just barely enough to bind the sides of a soprano. I recommend longer, if you can.5/32 thick, how long and wide for the first stack?
Yeah, so you glue a veneer to one side before slicing off from the main loaf. This will act as the purfling on the inside of the binding, and also help hold it together. Before cuttting the final binding strips, another sacrificial veneer is glued the other side of the slice. It gets sanded off in the end, being on the outside, and is for structural support while bending.Nice....how did it bend? Looks like you glued veneer to one side
Here ya go. I am following the instructions from The Ukulele An Illustrated Workshop Manual by Graham McDonald.
Laminate 5/32 blanks
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Cut sections at 40 degrees or so, and glue front to back.
View attachment 139046
Nice! I did my rope side binding a couple weeks ago, and ended up doing it in small sections at a time. 3-6 inch peices. For one, I never got a whole side's worth in one piece bent. The waist was a killer. And also getting it to just the right shape. I am doing a tight waisted soprano, so your's might go better. One thing that seemed to work was to get it hot and flexible on the bending iron and quickly get it into place and glue it before it cools and gets stiff again.Well, so far so good. Tightbond III was way better. I bent it with no veneer backer to ~4" diameter (weissenborn build). I only broke it in a couple places...probably bad glue joints. I think for the body I'll keep the strips short and bend/fit as I go. No way I could deal with a 40" srip of this stuff.