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I've bound my first guitar with a borrowed stew-mac and edge guide, the guy had made a wedged base to take into account, the doming of the front and back. I found it a little unsatisfactory, but am sure with practice you could make a very reasonable job with the tool. My next idea was to make my own edge guide to fit my dremel router base but with a much wider guide. I'm now contemplating doing the same on a laminate trimmer hence the thread about which to buy and the consensus seems to be Bosch. I'm now considering making a binding jig, and want to know the pros and cons and what's available as I may of missed some or are they strictly necessary?

1.a bosch colt with a home-made edge guide as in the Jim Williams book
2. a don williams style
3. a home-made version of the stewmac true channel binding jig

There are probably some other methods like purfling cutter and chiseling out or a gramil is it? Any tips suggestion opinions etc would be wonderful I'm scouring the archives at the moment, but have yet to find a thread comparing methods.

Cheers Again
John

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

hey john, im working on my first guitar, but routing the binding channel was made brainless with a williams/fleishman style jig. actually, more specifically with the dave white modification. here are some links to instructions for building the jig and the dave white mod.

http://www.dewguitars.com/BindingJig/Binding%20Jig.htm

http://www.defaoiteguitars.com/page38.htm

if you use the dave white modification with the bosch colt (i did), you will have to grind a small portion of each corner of the base round to use in a 6" lazy susan. at least the particular lazy susan i used from woodcraft. this can easily be done with a file. i used a bench grinder and when i was finished polishing it up, you could not tell i had even touched it; nor does the modification to the base effect its use otherwise. hope that helps.

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sweat the small stuff.

Dave lives not too far from me and has kindly offered the use of his jig so I think I'll try it before I make one

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

The parallelogram jig is really cool but being all lazy and such, I went with the simpler rout ( ) and built one of these instead. Works really well, only took an hour or two to build, and doesn't take up much space when not in use.

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I use this jig sold by Ken at KMG. It is a terrific little setup. Comes with a router for under $200. You just lay the guitar body on the foam shuttle and run it around the guide mounted on the table. Pretty simple and very effective setup.

Ken

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http://www.casperguitar.com

John, look at this thread.

http://luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10102&t=14071&p=198518&hilit=lazy+susan#p198518

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

Cheers Colin must of taken some digging as I couldn't find it

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

Here's the jig I made up last week to do #3. It's half in. plywood and clamps to the top of my bench for easy storage. Seen many ways to do the support to ride on the top of the guitar, but I made mine pretty simple. The LP style body I'm building has a pretty deep carve, so I took a half in. piece of pine, drilled a 1 in. hole with my forstner bit with just about half the bit hanging off the edge of the pine. That left me about 2/3 of the hole in the pine. Then I cut 3/16 outside the hole on my band saw, and glued it to the bottom. That leaves me with a 3/16 ledge to ride around the top. Just used it yesterday, and it worked great. But the edge on the body, start the router, feed it in till the bearing touches the side, then slide the body around under the jig. After doing 2 with a hand held base I made for my laminate trimmer, I'm glad I took the time to make this jig.



Here's the end result. It's still proud of the top, as I haven't scraped it flush yet, but it's tight all the way around with no gaps. That's a first for me.

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Rob

Once again, a timely thread for myself as building a binding cutter is the task at hand for the day.

You guys using Dave's lazy susan base for the Williams/Fleishman jig, I'm don't see the advantage? Does that help if you're using a guide on the router as opposed to bearing bit? I will be using a bearing bit, just because I bought one from LMI, but I sure can see the advantage of using a guide instead.

Happy Holidays
Danny

Danny, the lazy susan modification allows one to use a downcut spiral bit (which gives a cleaner cut IMO) and also allows for infinatly more variation on binding thickness, purfling thickness when using a guide of some sort.

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bingo. no need for bearings to get varying width channels. just adjust your guide bearing and you are good to go. the downcut spiral is the cats meow as well.

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sweat the small stuff.

I built this over a year ago and haven’t had the time to put it threw its passes.
The laminate trimmer or router stays in a fixed position while the guide bearing follows the side of the guitar. It can be adjusted to any thickness binding.

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Rich S

"The inconvenience of poor quality will linger long after the thrill of a bargain has been forgotten"

For Sale- One set Stew Mac binding router bit wit bearings. Never used.

Thanks. I wish I had picked up on this before I bought the set. Spiral cutter sure does look like the way to go.

I went with a LMI style for the space issues over the Williams but both are good. I think the LMI style is less costly to build. I also added the Doolin changes to it. Here is mine:
viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=19654

The William's jig is so easy even a Yorkie can do it..........

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Ann Arbor Guitars

Looks like most favour the Williams jig with Dave's mod, though if I buy a Bosch colt I'd need to mod the base correct?

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

I'm not sure John my friend since I don't have any Colts, yet. But with my PC-310 it was just a matter of removing the stock base and attaching the router to the William's jig base plate.

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Ann Arbor Guitars

If you can build the jig you won't have any trouble mounting you router of choice.

Chris this is what I was refering to

John

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Formerly JJH

I learn more from my mistakes than my successes

John,
Before you decide on the Williams jig I'd suggest you also try the LMI style too. I was leaning towards the Williams at first but space was a factor for me and cost and time to build it. I also thought holding the router seemed to be a good idea. But after going the LMI route it turned out not to be a problem moving the sled and was alot easier then I thought. It was also easier to build and I didn't have to do anything to it to use a edge guide bearing. I'm just saying give the LMI style a good look at before deciding. I also think the LMI is more adaptable for things like quick change pre set routers (Doolin setup), small pin router and as of new possibly a small duplicator. Worth some thought.
Also I'm really not all that fond of the edge guide bearing. It serves as a OK. alternative to the bearing kit and is alot cheaper and can do certain things the bit bearing can't. But to me it's more time consuming getting a even router channel and if the sides aren't perfectly square or not perpendicular to the top in areas then the lower the edge bearing rides on the side then the more the channel will be off. I probably should have bought me the LMI complete bearing Kit and two extra bits for Xmas and save the edge bearing for when needed. Just another consideration.

john, maybe others who use the colt with the dave white mod can chime in here, but with the particular 6" lazy susan i used from woodcraft, i had to grind part of the base away. as mentioned, this is quite simple and does not hinder its use otherwise. if you are concerned, take a look at some of the inside diameters of some of the lazy susans on the market and compare them to lam trimmer base sizes. i dont recall if you actually own the bosch colt yet or if you are still looking.

as for the bearing on the edge guide, it is not a sealed ball bearing and it could be of better quality. for what we use it for i think it is quite adequate though and not worth upgrading IMHO. i adjust the guide bearing to sit just below the spiral bit and therefore i believe there is no negative influence on getting a uniform binding channel. this point, IMO is really irrelevant because you should do proper leveling of the sides prior to binding anyway. ive only bound one guitar with this machine so i am no expert, but i achieved flawless results the first time with no fuss.

chris' point about using the edge guide bearing with the LMI style binding jig is a legitimate one. no need for a lazy susan. im sure whatever method you go with will serve you well.

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sweat the small stuff.

In order to make jigs, one has to be somewhat resourceful and adapt to the tools you have and the idea you're looking at. Following is a plan is good but usually you have to follow it to a "T" if you can't be resourceful and adapt to your tools at hand.

Anyway, both the Williams and Ribbecke jig are great but they are also (IMO) more expensive to build than needs to be. I built a jig in about 30 mins that does a great job. It works on the "move the guitar" method, not the cutter like the Williams jig. It doesn't require a cradle like the others. It's based off the Larrivee style and Taylor also uses this type of binding jig.

Here's a link and here's a basic picture.

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"There's really no wrong way, as long as the results are what's desired." Charles Fox

"We have to constantly remind ourselves what we're doing....No Luthier is putting a man on the moon!" Harry Fleishman

"Generosity is always different in the eye of the person who didn't receive anything, but who wanted some." Waddy Thomson

The cradle isn't a bad thing to have actually. I 've been using it as a horizontal vise for my guitar. It's pretty useful. You can clamp it down to the bench or leave it free and is useful for holding the guitar when binding and installing purfling and sanding. When sitting in the cradle you don't have to worry about scratching the back or top. Sort of a horizontal Trojiy(sp?).

A good reason to keep an SM or LMI binding set around is for headstocks .. I have three of the luthier tool type jigs (two are shopbuilt) and they dont work all that well on headstocks - not enough surface to register off - so the router table and one of the bit sets is the way to go for me.

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Tony Karol
www.karol-guitars.com
"let my passion .. fulfill yours"

Thanks Tony. And one thing I have never found myself saying is "I have too many router bits".