Official Luthiers Forum!

Sorry if this topic has been beat to death but I searched the forums for binding jig but can't find a way to refine the search for binding AND jig so I got 682 pages of posts with the word 'binding' in it.

Anyway I've been googling binding jigs ALL day and have seen a lot of different variations on the theme and was wondering what the general consensus (if there could be a consensus on such things) was on the best binding jig. I've seen the extendable parallel arm, the hand held type, the 'move the guitar under the trimmer type and a dozen permutations of each design. Space is limited but I want something reasonable to build myself (don't want to buy one) and reliable for a long time. Some use bearing sets others use an adjustable bearing and single 1/4" down spiral bit which I (think I) would prefer. Any help greatly appreciated.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Mine is pretty simple. I took a wooden drawer-slide, cut it in half and installed the male-portions on the walls of a U-box and the female portions on a sliding shelf which extends in front of the box and holds the trimmer.

I use a flush-cutting bit and then change the bearing to cut the binding ledges.
I do not do perfling or rosettes.
A 1/8" washer around the bit and fastened to the bottom of the shelf allows for the curvature in the soundboard and back.

Mine works much like Chris's but I am not tech-savy enough to post a picture.

Bob

Hi Larry,

I don't think this is the kind of thing that you will find a general consensus on. Instead what you are going to find is that there are a lot of different variations of binding jigs and each jig has a faithful following of strong supports. I'm a huge fan of the Kett jig which I make and sell. It has some unique features that make it different from any other jig on the market. But it is not something that is easy to make on your own unless you have some metal working tools and experience. I believe if you do some searching you can find plans for adjustable hand held jigs that will work with a laminate trimmer and 1/4" spiral bit. The downside to an adjustable jig is that you have to set the depth every time you use it. This may not be a big deal depending on how many guitars you build. Where the Kett jig and bearing based jigs really shine is repeatability. I can pull my binding jig out of the drawer, set it to a precise depth and start cutting in less than 30 seconds. It takes less than 30 seconds to reset the jig to cut the purfling channel. Once I've determined the settings for a certain binding and perfling scheme than I don't have to spend a lot of time doing test cuts to ensure things are at the proper depth. I know what the depths are and I can setup the jig and go. A huge time saver.

I would probably start with one of the adjustable jigs you can make yourself, but down the road you may find it worth while to invest in one of these other binding systems.

Josh

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Thanks Bob I appreciate the reply. Do you mean Chris Paulick? I was checking his videos and thought his ideas were worth considering as it is very adjustable and seems to be fairly compact as well.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

this is a good topic and there is more than one way to do this. Hand held units can be tricky and do take some hand skill to use. I will agree that the Kett is one of the better hand held units I have seen . I did buy a jig similar to the Kett in 2003 at the ASIA symposium. Then I used the Ribbeke but now like the fleishman and find that mated with the Ridgid laminate trimmer both is pretty straight forward. The carriage and binding jig take the variability out of the equation.
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... XTzYHD7Y_8
this link will show 2 units. One is the one designed by Tom Ribbeke and the other is the Fleishman. This should give you enough information to make a sound decision for you.
Good luck a quality tool is an investment , a cheap tool is often a cost. Any of these will serve you well.

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Thanks so much for responding Josh, I know this subject is well worn and perhaps worn out and I assume a consensus is not very a reasonable request. I have seen your jig for sale here but can't understand exactly how the Kett design works but it seems like the features are quite compelling for ease of set up as you mentioned.

I have built 3 guitars and am thrashing my way through a 4th but will make more and would like something better than the angled base and hand held contraption I faked it through previously. I'll keep searching till I find something that fits my needs. I like Chris Paulick's design and its adjustablility and may go that route. The other option is the Williams design but it seems to take up more room than I have. Again thanks so much for the reply.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Excellent John and thank you very much. I REALLY like the idea of holding the router as the channels are cut so I may go the Fleishman design. I have seen the Don Williams design as well and it seems similar or identical to the Fleishman - are they the same?

I would love to purchase it from you but funds do not allow at this time but your videos are an invaluable source of knowledge and are very much appreciated.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Thanks Todd.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Same here. With the Dave White modification. I haven't mastered the installation of binding, but cutting the channels is brainless.

http://www.defaoiteguitars.com/page33.htm

_________________
sweat the small stuff.

For simple and cheap (with no compromise in quality) it's hard to go past a router hung off a parallelogram linkage (use decent quality butt hinges for the pivots) hung off a post. Move the guitar beneath it on a carriage. The major expense is in the bearing guided cutters (LMI or Stewmac) but a number of people have used this configuration with a spiral downcut bit and the edge guide that came with the router/trimmer (in which case you have to keep the guide bearing and bit aligned radially to the guitar as you rotate the guitar) but that's not hard and is what you have to do with a hand held router anyway.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

The Fleishman jig / Williams jig are similar. I don't know for sure who did what when but when I started making them , the unit was more stable by placing the rotary bearing on the top. Also these jigs do need the carriage. As for down cut or up cut , use what you like but make sure they are sharp.
The carriage takes away the variability of the cutter position in relation to the sides and helps with the cut being parallel to the side. Using a cutter with bearing guitars that set the cutter distance are more accurate than moving a guide in relation to the cutter , unless the guides swap out and are based on cutter clearance to the center of the cutter. Other wise you inject another variable into the equation of making sure you are tangent to the cutter to achieve the proper depth. I also like the added input to the user of the router being in hand.
I agree that there are many ways to do things, and you as a builder must decide which is best for you. I like jigs that are well made and use proper materials. KETT is a well made and designed machine . As hand held units go , it is one of the best out there. Tools are investments low quality tools are costs .

_________________
John Hall
blues creek guitars
Authorized CF Martin Repair
Co President of ASIA
You Don't know what you don't know until you know it

Are they handheld? I saw a video and the unit is mounted in a vise, with the guitar body handheld?

To clarify, I would not classify the Kett jig as a handheld since the jig is stationary (either bolted to your bench or held in a vise). Yes, the guitar body is handheld as you rotate it around the jig, so if that is what people are referring to than I guess you could say it is. When I think of handheld binding jigs I think of the attachments people have made for routers/trimmers where the jig is moved around the body with no carriage involved. Like this http://luthiertool.com/binding%20cutter.html

Larry,
The quick setup and compactness of this design are two of the features I really like about it. I can store the hole jig (with router attached) in my router drawer along with 8 other routers. I'm working on a short video which will highlight the features of the jig. I had hoped to have it done a few days ago but all the holiday socializing of this past week has resulted with me being home sick for the past few days . Any of the options mentioned here will be a big step above using a laminate trimer with a tilting base.

There were two other threads about the jig within the past 2 weeks. Anyone who didn't see them can probably get some of there questions answered in these threads.

http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=38581
http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=38580

_________________
Josh House

Canadian Luthier Supply
http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com
https://www.facebook.com/canadianluthiersupply?ref=hl
House Guitars - Custom Built Acoustic Instruments.
http://www.houseguitars.com

Thanks again John. A couple comments/questions.



Don Williams gives credit to Harry Fleishman for the invention......"A number of years ago, I started to build a binding jig invented by Harry Fleishman."



By rotary bearing do you mean the Lazy Susan bearing assembly? And by on the top do you mean that bearing would go between the drawer assembly and the riser and not under the riser as the Fleishman/Williams plan shows?



Good advice. I'm attracted to the adjustable side gauge found on the Makita trimmer but I also have a bearing set from LMI or StewMac and having an accurate bearing set seems a god long term investment



I like this idea as well and thank again for the insights and information.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Here's the jig I use:

viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=19236

Same principle as the Fleishman but much simpler and cheaper to make. It also takes less space when not in use. Works great. Not sure why it hasn't seemed to catch on as I'm the only one that brings it up when people ask about binding jigs.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

Pat I think that's brilliant. I think I'll build something very much like that with perhaps a base for the router instead of the hose camp, or perhaps another type of quicker release set up. Need to find a place that I can mount it - fairy permanently it looks like though suppose someone could build a movable, clampable base?

Looks like it's made out of 3/4" poplar?

_________________
Thank You and Best To All

Home Depot poplar it is. One thing I should mention is that in my first go, I left the flat area on the "donut" too wide at about 1/4". Half that or even less is better - gives a more uniform channel depth.

Pat

_________________
There are three kinds of people:

Those that make things happen,
those that watch things happen,
and those that wondered what happened.

That is pure genius.

I am a ways away from needing a binding jig just yet, but that design is exactly how I will go ...only thing that occurred to me at first glance is that the primary arms might benefit from some reinforcement ? ...I'm thinking there might be a slight flex there which could be eliminated by gluing and screwing a plywood plate ?

Once again, a brilliant design, thank you, Pat.

Yep, that's it! I won't try to sell that design as necessarily better than others, but it's cheap and easy to build and has worked well for me for years. I love how it folds up flat against the wall and takes up little space. Thanks again to Dan Fobert for the design.

_________________
Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Actually, I was just looking at Pat's again and thinking about changing mine up by adding saddles and a hose clamp. During moving, my router base broke and I need to rebuild it, anyway. This would be more stable.

And, yes, you could build a moveable mount, but it would have to be solid and stable. And repeatable and easy to set up. This design folds flat against the wall and doesn't take up much space. I really recommend a wall mount where it is permanently set and plumbed up. Mine is also made from HD poplar. If you look on the LINT website where I got the design, Dan even shows it mounted in a drill press.

_________________
Wes McMillian
Santo, TX
http://www.wesmcmillian.com

Certainly simpler than the Fleishman rig, but you only actually need the last parallelogram and then move the guitar under it.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

So, on Pat's jig, you anchor the guitar to the bench and move the router round ...

On Trevor's jig , you build a cradle for the guitar body and feed it into the router ...

Off the top of my head I know which one appears to be the more ergonomic.

I've used both types (and numerous other arrangements) but have a strong preference for a particular one. Horses for courses, as they say.

_________________
Trevor Gore, Luthier. Australian hand made acoustic guitars, classical guitars; custom guitar design and build; guitar design instruction.

http://www.goreguitars.com.au

Pat here's my take on your binding mach w the addition of an arm and spring to keep it from falling on the body.

LOVE the simplicity. I'm putting that design in my data base of smart guitar stuff. Thanks Trevor.

_________________
Thank You and Best To All