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*Okay, not really.  Some guitars look like they could use binding, but just wouldn’t be worth the expense of adding it.  Here’s a different approach that we think turned out great.

Binding A Les Paul Studio

A customer brought in a new Les Paul 60’s Tribute Studio (not this one – we forgot to take before pictures once again.)  It’s a nice looking guitar with a very tastefully done ‘honeyburst’ and matte top finish.  As with other Studios, there’s no binding but they left the side of the maple cap clear so it sort of implies a line of binding –  like you’d see on a Paul Reed Smith.  It doesn’t look bad, but the owner felt like something was missing and wanted it to look more like a Standard Les Paul. He asked about adding a gloss finish and binding.

The gloss was no problem, but to add real binding the way it should look would require taking the neck off, routing a binding channel, binding the guitar,  and possibly refinishing the top and or sides – and that’s before we think about binding the neck too.  Too much.  …Well what about painted-on binding?

We couldn’t think of a good reason not to, so we gave it a shot and were pleased with the results.  See the pics below!

Binding A Les Paul Studio

We stripped the guitar of all its hardware and electronics, taped off both the top and side, and airbrushed a cream-colored “binding” strip that is visible on both surfaces.

You’ll notice we didn’t “bind” the neck. We considered it, didn’t think it would look right to paint only the side of the fretboard. Binding has depth and you’d see it looking straight on as well as from the side. To get the rosewood face painted would require taping off or scraping the frets themselves and afterward spraying clear paint to protect the cream color from the constant friction of a left hand… it just seemed like more work than we or the owner felt was necessary. We think it looks great just like this.

Binding A Les Paul Studio

Turns out there’s a very good reason why Gibson binds their guitars while they’re still in pieces and unfinished.  It’s easier and it looks better that it would to try to bind a finished guitar. The gloss shows up a little less in this final pic, but you can see what a difference the painted binding line makes on this guitar.  It turned out to be a really good call and at a fraction of what we’d have to charge for actual plastic binding.

Binding A Les Paul Studio