LMI Help Center

Plastic Binding Length

At Luthiers Mercantile, we have the largest assortment of binding materials anywhere. When shopping for plastic binding, it’s important to realize that there are a wide variety of lengths. This is true with wood bindings, but there we find that 32 inches long is pretty standard. The plastic bindings come in quite a range. This is because the plastic bindings come from sheets that are used in a variety of industries, not just guitars. One of the advantages of using plastic for bindings is that some of the strips can go all around the circumference of the body eliminating the need to navigate the joining to strips at the butt of the guitar. No seam!

Once you have landed on the plastic binding section of our website, we strongly recommend you use the filters to dial in the color layup (black/white/black for example) and the size requirements you have. Don’t forget that the celluloid bindings appear under a separate sub-menu on our site. These include the ivoroid and tortoise patterned strips that have special shipping restrictions and costs because the Department of Transportation considers them hazardous.  To help make your selection process a little easier we have prepared for you this chart listing the perimeter of the common guitar shapes and sizes. Remember that if you want to bind the fingerboard or other parts, you need to purchase more strips.

Instrument Reference Plan Reference Perimeter
Ramirez classical PL28 57.160
Hauser classical PL40 56.892
1937 Hauser classical PL64 57.188
000, Martin-style 14 fret PL31 59.770
Orchestra Model (OM), Martin-style PL34 59.572
Dreadnought, Martin-style, acoustic PL48 60.438
Small concert (parlor), Martin-style PL29 52.604
1-18, 1918 Martin-style 12 fret PL45 54.742
J-200 jumbo, Gibson-style PL55 63.764
Benedetto archtop NON cutaway PL33 64.442
Benedetto archtop cutaway PL33 66.276