I do not use foundation (Langstroth). As expected there are times that comb gets out of line, needs to be cut away and rubber banded back into the frames to straighten things out. The biggest problem I have found is that the rubber bands get pulled out too wide by the top bar of the frame (I use the ones from brushy and make my own wedges for starter strip) and subsequently the comb tends to slide to the bottom of the frames where you dont want it to.
My answer to this was to cut 4 grooves on both sides of my frames spaced an inch from either end and 4 inches or so from those grooves. Now I can put any width of comb into a frame anywhere and have it grab and keep the comb in place in the center of the starter strip. See pics for what I have done. I am going to do this to the rest of my frames in stock unless someone has a better way to keep comb in place. I just dialed in the technique on my tablesaw and can get 50 frames done in an hour or so.
Any input on these grooves affecting something else I am not considering do say so.
Bill
