Martin Acoustic Guitar Binding Repair - Loose Binding, Cracked Binding

Warranty Repair Center for:
C.F. Martin, Taylor, Fender

Before & After Pictures of
Cosmetic & Other Repairs

Martin Binding Repair

Celluloid binding shrinks and when it does it often pops loose from the body. You'll see in the first picture that the body is masked up thoroughly. Because the adhesive used to bind instruments must be capable of melting the laminates together it is also capable of eating up the finish. That can add to your touch up work greatly. A good masking job helps me limit the area exposed to the adhesive and keep any glue covered fingertips off of the instrument. In this instance the shrinkage was so great at the tight waist area that I choose to pull the binding completely loose and re-adhere instead of attempting to stretch it and pull it back to the body at the waist.

Martin D-28 Binding Patch

The "stripes" in an instruments binding are all separate pieces of binding which have been laminated together. Some laminations are done before gluing the binding to the body, such as you see with the thin black/white binding in photo 2, some are done as we go. Those 2 pieces will be glued at the same time.

The upper, routed ledge which can be seen in photo 2 holds the thin black/white binding and the wide outer white binding caps that. After cutting replacement pieces to fit, masking the body and gluing the strips in place we must then scrape the binding so that it is flush with back and sides.
The scraping that is necessary for this small repair is hardly anything to speak off but it helps to visualize the kind of work involved in complete rebinding. Because routed channels can vary in depth ever so slightly, most of us choose to use binding that is slightly oversized and scrape it to match the contours of the body. When scraping binding on new construction there's little to think about apart from digging into the wood. However, when we are rebinding a finished instrument we must be ever so careful to avoid digging into the finish or scraping deeper than the clear coat. Instances where finish is removed equates to some nit picky touch up.
Some instruments that have been rebound do require a fair amount of overspray and touch up but this small patch job simply required a light touch up and tinting of the binding.

Martin 000-28 Eric Clapton Ding Repair

These little dings and chips can be very misleading. While it looks relatively simple to repair, they can take just as much time to repair as large finish cracks.
In this case we opted not to remove the finish and attempt to swell the indented wood back as doing so can turn a tiny blem into an eye catching, what's that?
But dings on corners and sharp edges make sanding thru the surrounding finish, very easy. In this instance the divot was drop filled and oversprayed.
I normally will not even attempt a repair that requires spray work for under $75, so you can see how expensive repairing every little nick and ding can add up.
I also caution people that while finish repairs can render the previous damage invisible for a while, the fresh lacquer will begin to shrink almost immediately and under close inspection, you can usually spot the once invisible repair. Lacquer shrinkage dictates that finish repairs have a minimum of 4 weeks cure time before the new finish is sanded and polished.