Staining a guitar with binding.

I'm going to be staining a yellow birch body that has white binding. It is a colortone red stain, from stew mac, and I plan on mixing it with alcohol and rubbing it into the bare wood before spraying nitro. I have never done this before. Will the binding reject the stain and clean up with no problem? Will I have to scrap the binding? Should I not be doing a stain in this method because of the binding? What do you think?

No one's ever stained a guitar with binding before?

It will take some of the stain, but you can scrape it with a razor after or sand it. It's more likely that the glue will get stained more than the binding itself. I've read of someone applying lacquer or sealer with a cotton swab but that sounds tedious. Hopefully, someone else can chime in, but that's the only technique I'm aware of.

http://www.gibson.com/en-us/Lifestyle/video/Making%20Of%20The%20Gibson%20Cust%20%2812%29/

With the binding I've used, I've never had the binding absorb the stain to the point where it couldn't be scraped off.

This is how I go about it.... I usually "cut in" around the binding using an artist brush. Maybe an unnecessary step to some, but it saves me some time having to scrape the binding later. After that you can stain without worrying so much about making a mess on your binding. ...but remember, it's almost a sure thing that you'll get some stain on the binding here and there...but...it can be easily scraped off with a razor blade.

So what you were planning to do won't give you any problems...just be prepared to do a bit of cleanup work with a razor afterwards. ...and make sure you don't have any glue/epoxy/cement residue left on the wood surface before you start in with the stain.

I'll be interested to see where this thread goes - I used StewMac binding a while ago with the following result. I was not a happy camper.

http://farm5.staticflickr.com/4076/4778339287_b6d29a0dcd_z.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theguitarsmith/4778339287/)
Binding disaster. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/theguitarsmith/4778339287/) by The Guitarsmith (http://www.flickr.com/people/theguitarsmith/), on Flickr

Hmmm...I used the StewMac white binding on the guitar in my avatar (photo in my profile's album after staining/binding cleanup) and never ran into any issues doing it like I mentioned earlier. Everything came out clean and crisp. There was some cleanup to be done with a razor blade, but I never had any hairline cracks in the binding like shown in your photo.

Did you use the StewMac ColorTone liquid stain?

Why not mask the binding, and spray a toner coat instead of dying the body. that way you don't have to worry about it bleeding into the binding.

I didn't, I used Feast Watson, a good quality Aussie brand. I actually rebound it, and despite being super careful still had some problems so I touched in some white enamel and after lacquering it looks superb. No doubt I'll bind/stain again, so I'm keen to learn the secret!

Spraying a toner is a solution, but not everyone has spraying facilities.

The very first body I stained with binding I didn't spray with vinyl sealer first. Big mistake. I sprayed nitro directly on it and it lifted the color and bled onto the binding. Salvageable, but a real pain in the backside to fix...

Learned a lot since then and currently agree with Colt's school of thought...

If I remember right I sealed the binding with shellac before my second attempt - helped but didn't eliminate the problem.

The very first body I stained with binding I didn't spray with vinyl sealer first. Big mistake. I sprayed nitro directly on it and it lifted the color and bled onto the binding. Salvageable, but a real pain in the backside to fix...

Learned a lot since then and currently agree with Colt's school of thought...

Yeah, I would spray the whole thing with vinyl, and let it dry. Mask the binding, and spray a toner coat. Then remove the tape, and spray clear.