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Cut the Cocobolo binding strips tonight. I had bought a practice side from RCT and it was white oak so I thiined it and practiced cutting strips from it first. It went well so I thinned the Cocobolo and tried it. It went pretty nice. Only issue I had was the stip was only 1.5" wide and unfortunately, the sides werent flat so I had to get them flat and I barely had enough wood left to cut 5 binding strips.......but I made it.

I used the dimensions Todd suggested, used a zero clearance insert, used a wood block clamped to the fence on top of the strip, and used the Freud blade shown above. Turned out nice and I sure appreciate the tips!

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

This binding cutting setup uses a .030" x 1.25" blade mounted on a pneumatic die grinder which travels manually on a single linear way. The material being cut is held stationary by a couple cam clamps. One of the two tab stops is shown in the picture and is adjusted with a 10-24 screw at the other side of the table. The table will hold a 2'x4' sheet. The .030 blade is flat ground carbide which leaves a nice square edge on wood but ABS requires deburring with a scraper.

Edit: Blade guard has been removed for photo.

I'll bet that works nice Nelson. Thanks for posting that.

One thing I meant to mention when I was cutting these strips with the board clamped above the blade on top of the binding strip, when the end of the binding stip was cut off, I had to be careful how I pulled the binding strip through else the back side of the blade would "nick" the end of th ebinding strip. In hindsight, I should probably have thicknessed some scrap wood to the same thickness as the binding stock and used the scrap to push the end of th ebinding through the blade. I'm thinking it would have stayed straight this way. Since this is a 00 body, the binding strip are plenty long so it's not an issue for this build.

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Formerly known as Adaboy.......

Man, that's the way! Great setup Nelson (..gettin' a lot of mileage out of that die grinder )

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Dave
Milton, ON

I use the Diablo 60 tooth now, for bindings and purflings. teamed with a pair of 5 stabilizers, it leaves a glue-ready edge.

I like to use flat-sawn 4/4 or thicker stock for most of my bindings; I'll rip a few slices with a 24 tooth diablo blade, then thickness these to .062"(1/16") on the thickness sander, then rip them to whatever height I need with the 60 tooth diablo. Keeping track of the binding strips via hash marks on 3 sides and setting them aside in their proper order, I can then "reassemble" the whole of them and choose bookmatched bindings. A small detail, but with light-colored bindings, like figured maple, it really helps make the joint disappear.

Nicely figure maple can often be found flat sawn, with the best figure on the edge(which is now the "quartersawn" edge), which is why I prefer using flat sawn. But if I have a board that has its best figure on the face and not the edge, I'll then rip this one to about .300", dress one surface on the thickness sander, then rip them to .070-.080", and take 'em down to .062" on the sander once again. And again, I'll use hash marks on a couple of surfaces and keep them in order, giving me bookmtached bindings again.

Small details, but hey, that's where we have an edge over the factories...!

I never pre-glue any side purflings to the binding strips; I just add the side purfs along with the top surface's at the same time as I bind. A bit of a juggling act, but if you're concerned it'll be too much to juggle, do a few dry runs; it really isn't any tougher to do.