b'Top:This is tricky, but Paul knows how to keep all those lines from getting tangled up.Right: We start at the bottom joint, making sure that the ends of each of the seven lines are ready to make a perfect joint with the seven on the other side, then glue them and pull them tight into the rebate with masking tape. It takes a lot of strength, and a lot of tape, which often breaks, causing all sorts of new wordscan. We end up with a big football of used sticky tape on the to be invented. Making a new join at the other end is one of thefloor. This job can be done with rope, which avoids some of the hardest and most precise jobs in guitar making.For a simpleproblems, but creates others, I sure you never imagined that design, there might be only one piece of binding to fit, but forsuch a simple process had so many implications.more complex patterns it can be up to nine separate pieces toOpposite page: Four bindings, two purflings and eight lines to bend, and to fit at the same time. We all get very strong fingers. install. Years ago, we used to have binding races. Ready steady Left: The end result. Finding tape with the right properties isgo. I would win in those days, I wouldnt even finish now, so I hard, and supplies are often inconsistent. As well as beingleave it to the youngsters.strong so that we can pull it tight, the tape has to have adhesive that wont pull away under the tension. That causes another problem, because removing the tape will often tear the grain of the soundboards, so we carefully tease up the ends to get a grip, then warm up the tape with a heat gun before pulling it off carefully at an angle against the grain as cleanly as we 176'