F-5 Point Material Choice--When Using Curly Maple Bindings

[Andy Morton]

Hi--Have any of you used ebony or any other mater for the corner points along with curly maple binding? Just wondering what types of point material builders have used besides celluloid or bone and how that pairs with this type of binding?

Thanks for any suggestions or what your experience has been...and of course any pictures that could be posted would be very much appreciated.

By the way...I have been using "Veneer Tamer" to help with bending the curly maple binding and it has worked pretty well so far--even with the scroll.

When I am finished with the binding--I plan to provide info on how that worked.

Thanks again for any info and thoughts.

Andy Morton
Madison, WI

[buckhorn]

ebony, ivoride, bone, ABS plastic, stained wood, laminates.... I think there are a lot more things that can be used.. .. some things are a little hard to glue thu , ebony and bone.. they want to tear off when you cut the binding channel.. so I route just up the point, then hand cut with a crafting blade.. glueing to the end grain with most anything is tricky...

[Martian]

i have used ebony, with white binding, and it looks pretty cool because you do not see the points connect the top and back bindings
what is binding tamer?. I have not built anything in about 5 years, and am thinking of doing a build now, for some reason lol

[Andy Morton]

Veneer Tamer is a product similar to "super soft" and is used to help flatten veneers prior to glue up.

I have used it with the curly maple binding and seemed to improve the bending without as much breakage.....but I am sill working with it.

I will post more when I have worked with it some more.

Thanks for the info and for sharing your experience...I am leaning to using ebony.

Andy

[HoGo]

I've used flamed maple for corners for my first four mandolins with all flamed maple bindings. Here is one of those: (sorry I don't have any better shots showing the points)