How to prevent fretboard bindings on Les Pauls from cracking?

[lightningsmith]

My old Les Paul has that problem and I've heard people saying you have to properly humidify the guitar. How?

I live in Singapore, which is the most humid place on the planet and the sun is scorching hot. It's summer all year long here. The Les Paul was kept in a hardcase in my room where it's quite warm in the day but I would usually turn on the air-con when I brought it out to play.

Besides the end of some frets, the cracks have extended all the way to the bottom of the binding where it meets the back of the neck, will the bindings chip off overtime or when the neck is refretted?

[paulg]

In the short term your probably OK. "Overtime" is hard to determine, the likelyhood goes up that as glue deteriates and humidity and sweat takes its toll, the binding could fall off.
The root cause of the problem is Gibsons construction technique of installing the frets, sanding them flush then installing the binding. As the fret expands it will crack the binding. A better technique is to install the binding first then the fret with a little bit of the tang removed. When you have the guitar refreted this can be corrected.
I wouldn't loose any sleep over it.

[DavidH]

You'd expect this to happen in dry conditions though i'd have thought, as the board dries out it shrinks, and the frets sprout out the edge of the board, cracking the binding. maybe it could be caused by the board swelling (?)

You could measure the humidity and see where you're at, a hygrometer to go on the wall is a good idea where you keep your guitars. Or you can get a Sling Psychrometer/Aspirated psychrometer- a cheap but accurate device for measuring humidity.

[paulg]

Also, heat will make the metal frets expand at a different rate from the wood. I'd guess the worst enviromnment would be a desert, dry and hot!

[5er Driver]

And don't forget - an air conditioner (cooling) dehumidifies air. So everything in the room experiences not only thermal shock from hot-cool-hot cycles, but also humid-dry-humid cycles, whatever that's called (hydro shock?).