New Project 2006 Onwards..

[Mattw04]

Hi all

I have posted here before with various guitars i have built, this time its a bit different as i need a little advice, All the guitars (this type anyway) which i have built have had binding round the edge.

But this guitar Has an F hole in it...

if you know its a Brian May guitar, what i would really like to do is Bind the F hole but i am a little unsure of how to go about this and how its done.

So i guess i will be asking you guys any tips how to go about this?

heres some other pics of the guitar and the previous one i have completed.

and heres the old one....

thanks for looking

[Mattw04]

anyone?

[ToneMonkey]

Personally I have no experience with this, so take what I say with a pinch of salt.

One option I can see is to mark a line (the thickness of the binding) around the hole and break out the dremel, chisles and sandpaper. I'm finding it hard to think of an easy method now that the top is on the axe.

However, if you can get to the bottom of the F hole, here is something that may work....

....As far as I can see, there is not enough of a lip to be able to use a dremel and a bit with a bearing (like a small version of how to bind the sides). You could put a bit of wood under the f hole and use a flush cutting bit to route out the excat shape of the f hole in that bit of wood. Keeping it where it is, you should now have enough area to use the dremel and bit.

Like I said, remember that I have absolutely no experience with this so if you intend on doing either of the above, I can't be held responsible

Where abouts in the midlands are you? I'm between Hinckley and Leicetser

[Mattw04]

hi thanks for that its a start.

I am actually in the south east, nearer london.

[Desopolis]

perhapse making your own dremel base about 6" wide, and just set the height whatever the binding is..

thats what I do when I recess pickguards, but I start with a router, then switch to a VERY little dremel bit.

[verhoevenc]

What Benedetto's book says is that he has two different sized templates for routing his f-holes: 1 for plain, 1 for bound f-holes. And both actually end up with the same sized f-hole. IE: all you have to do is recut your f-hole to be X-amount wider at all points, and then glue in the binding that is X-amount thick.

HOT Brian May. I actually bought the template set a couple months ago with plans to make one with a couple little personal touches, like I have a special way of making it "red" that I'll leave for a surprise... (sadly it's far down the line of future plans... I have SO many I need to build first :S ). Either way, I gotta ask, when you do these, are you buying the bridge hardware, or making the bridge yourself like May did? I'm planning to build my own and have the process and design pretty well mapped out, but any info you could give would be great regardless.

Chris

[WezV]

Benedetto's book has a few paragraphs and pictures on binding f-holes.

He does it before the top plate is attached which makes a lot of sense so you may have made more work for yourself by glueing the top on first - i reckon its still doable though!

you need to find a way to bend the binding to the tight curves, use a heat gun (gently!!) till its soft enough.

You need four peices, two longer bits should do the round ends of the f-hole and go towards the middle, then two shorter bits do the relatively straight bits that are left.

You need to sharpen up all the corners to make sure you can get nice joins in the binding

Here is a (very rough) picture with the sections of f-hole you want to bind first, tidy it up then do the other two short sections

[Mattw04]

That helps alot cheers, I was going to re rout the f hole to sharpen up the edges, I brought some very thin flexible binding to do the f hole with.

But that does help thanks guys.