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I usually cut binding material from the surplus on sides. I happen to have a lot of irregular, narrow BRW strips from which I would like to cut bindings, but I cannot work that close to a saw blade. Seems to me I saw mention of a method to make a little tool to strip the blinding with a knife, Any suggestions?

Maybe this'll give you some ideas - http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10117&t=19132
Made my own version, used for cutting purfling to height - http://www.luthiersforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=10101&t=52216&p=687019&hilit=+viewtopic.php%3Ff%3D10117%26t%3D19132#p687019

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

I use my old fret slotting blade for that with a zero clearance insert. It feels perfectly safe.

+1 for zero clearance insert. I also clamp a thin, flexible piece of any wood lying around to the saw fence to act as a 'hold-down'.

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Rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy

I also use a zero clearance insert with a Freud Diablo blade and a narrow feather board clamped to the fence to hold the strip down and a magnetic feather board horizontally on the table top.

Also a narrow pusher

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It's not what you don't know that hurts you, it's what you do know that's wrong.

I take whatever I plan to make bindings from, plane both faces, something like 1/4" thick X the wider the better. Then joint both edges. Then set up my 14" bandsaw with a fence to cut somewhere around 0.010. Cut a binding strip from both edges, and joint them again, cut and repeat. When the stock becomes to narrow to joint, just cut the last few a little thicker and sand both sides.

I end up with very little waste because the 1/4" bandsaw blade has a very thin kerf. The bindings have one finished face and 2 square edges. Only one face to run through the sander or they can be installed rough side out and sanded on the guitar. Pretty easy to make 50+ binding strips in a very short time. And it is super safe.

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Brian R, Wood Mechanic
N8ZED

I clamp a straight edge to the strips and use an exacto knife.

Sometimes, particularly with something like curly maple sides, I'll do 'self' bindings. Bend the sides a bit deeper than normal, and profile them fairly close to 'right' before you trim them to the exact length. Then use a marking gauge to cut off about 1/4" along each edge, making register marks before hand so you can get them back in the same place later. Then trim the sides to length, glue on the blocks, and proceed as usual, with one exception. Glue on the liners a bit 'proud' of the upper and lower edges of the sides, so that when you've done the final profiling of the liners and blocks and glued the plates on you've got most of the binding ledge there already. All you have to do for that is run around with a light cut of the router to even the ledge height up and make it clean. Dress off the cut edges of the bindings on a flat sanding board, removing no more material than you need to.

I usually just bend a single dark line of side purfling for this, and it has to be bent sideways, of course. The best way I've found to do that is by making a narrow slot, not much wider than the thickness of the purfling, and just deep enough, in a curved part of my bending iron. This keeps the purfling line from bucking too much as it goes around the curves. I glue that line onto the ledge with CA, and the proceed with the job as usual.

If you do it right the curl figure on the sides continues out to the binding, so it looks as though you set the top and back in, and the purfling line looks like an inlay. It's a nice effect.

In addition to the above, also be sure to glue the blocks in proud. Especially the heel that attaches to the back! Damhikt The rest you can make up for later...

Pat

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Pat