The Russell Waimea slack key guitar is getting its binding glued onto the body.  The binding on this first Waimea is Madagascar Rosewood and the body is flamed curly Koa.  Here James is pushing the binding and pulling the cut inner tube he uses as a giant rubber band to hold the binding in place as it gets glued and as it dries.

There is an interesting story about this inner tube band.  Many years ago when James worked in Michael Dolan’s guitar shop in Santa Rosa, CA, a very young Julian Lage used to come to the shop on Saturdays and help out doing little chores. Mostly he was absorbing the good vibes and just digging being around cool guitars being made.  He was already quite amazing as a young guitarist of six years old.  When James cut this truck tire inner tube into a long rubber band to use for guitar making, Julian was James’ helper.  Some good mojo there.

In the photo above, James checks the fit of the binding strip that goes near the neck joint on the inside of the cutaway.  He will be hand mitering both the black/white purfling and the Madagascar Rosewood binding.

Above: James applies glue with a pipette to glue the binding and purfling to the Waimea body.

The binding and purfling on the back side of the slack key guitar body is glued and will sit a while to dry. Soon we will have photos of the body with binding on both back and top edges of the body, and we will have an endgraft shot showing the binding and miters. It’s moving fast!