MIMF

I came across this Canadian site a couple of days ago. http://www.canadianluthiersupply.com/pr ... inding-jig I like the jig they have for mounting a router for doing binding. It is pretty simple in essence and looks like one of the best solutions I have seen for sale. It would also be reasonable easy to make something similar.

I like the router in the video demo. Not sure what it is, but not anything that I have seen in Europe. I like the way the depth is adjusted.

Simon Magennis wrote: It would also be reasonable easy to make something similar.

Lots of people have made similar jigs, I know of at least one more commercial jig that is pretty much the same, and there's one in one of the Big Red Books. I even think there's a few in the MIMF archive (if its still available?, haven't checked in ages), including mine, which I have since retired. It can be made from inexpensive materials, and works fine, as long as you follow a few simple rules, most importantly; don't tip the instrument in towards the cutter, as it will cut deeper cut than the rest of the ledge.

Several of the ones I've seen that are variations of this design (my own retired one included) use a movable guide to control the depth/thickness of the cut. If the guide surface that rides against the side is curved and is not concentric with the trimmer shaft, you really need to pay attention to keep the guitar in the right orientation to the tangent of the curve of the side being cut, or the depth/thickness of the cut will vary. The Canadian Luthier design and the StewMac do not use a movable guide, but instead use different diameter guides that are concentric with the trimmer shaft, so the orientation of the guitar body is not critical.

I might well be pontificating on the obvious, but I thought it worth mentioning.

Pat

I built a couple of setups like that but eventually built what's shown in the pictures.

If you're going to that effort and spend that kind of money, you may as well build a binding machine like this or something similar.

The router and mounting plate ride on linear flange bearings smoothly floating up and down while keeping the router perfectly vertical. The guitar body is held in a carriage with four adjustable mounts.

I don't think the OP was going to spend "that kind of money". It was my understanding that he was looking to copy the design.

And there's always Don Williams' binding ledge cutting jig utilizing a lazy susan bearing and a couple door slides...

David King wrote:I don't think the OP was going to spend "that kind of money". It was my understanding that he was looking to copy the design.

Definitely spending not "that kind of money". I think it is a pretty elegant version however and see it paying for itself in a pro environment. IN fact I am currently constructing one like Joel's above. I am using the pattern in the Gore and Gilet book. With a bit of luck I will give it it's first outing tomorrow. We'll see.

I tried using less than precision component like door hinges, drawer slides, etc....but they allowed for too much deflection.

I have learned, that for guitar building jigs, it's best to use a design that's simplified as much as possible and use as precision components as possible.

Don Williams' design doesn't suffer any loss of accuracy from the use of drawer slides and lazy susan bearing as these parts simply allow for the router to be moved around the guitar while the depth of cut is controlled by the router bit bearing guide and the convex bottom of the router base; the accuracy of the orientation of the router parallel to the sides is controlled by the parallelogram mechanism which can be made quite stable by using piano hinges for the mechanism's pivot points.

Hi Simon,
I'm a little late coming to this thread, but I thought I'd answer your question about the router. The router I used in the demo video for the binding jig was a Hitachi M12VC. It is bigger than necessary for the jig, but there was a good sale on them a while back and I picked up a few for the shop at a good price. I have one on my router table as well. They seem like a good router for the price, my only issue was the collets they ship with them seem to have small metal burs which prevent them from seating properly. One these burs were cleaned up the collets seem to work fine.

Hi Josh, thanks for nice. Nice to see you here.
Simon