Fret neck binding

[Russman]

Hello all, any leads on where to get fret replacement binding? Have a few issues with this on an older guild? I know they can be glued etc. Just looking to have more just in case it should ever fall off and I don’t notice. Thank you in advance.

 

[Wilmywood]

Look at Stewmac

 

[Br1ck]

You can buy binding, you can't age it. Have someone make sure it's all solidly glued down.

 

[AcornHouse]

You can buy binding, you can't age it. Have someone make sure it's all solidly glued down.

Well, yes, you can. It actually not the binding that’s yellowed, it the lacquer on top. Masters of the craft can tint the lacquer to match old binding.

The trick is that, even though you can get binding from the usual suspects, you’ll probably have to scrape it to a custom thickness to replicate Guild’s exact scheme. They bought binding material in individual sheets and laminated their own patterns before slicing into strips.

 

[SFIV1967]

Masters of the craft can tint the lacquer to match old binding.

Frank Ford's trick was to fill lacquer in small closed jars and put them in the window to get them into the full sun. Now you leave some for one month, two month, three month,...as long as it takes to darken, and so you get an assortment of differently naturally aged (yellowed) lacquer. (best to also label the jars with the number of month). If you afterwards store them in a dark place you can keep them for a long time and simply mix some or add fresh lacquer to get to the right color required for the binding.

Ralf