Thread: Pics of Williams Binding cutting jig in action for Grant

thanks for the help martin,
I will make something along these lines...something simple . something that doesn't have a large surface area of the base riding on the top either...or I'd imagine the arch of the top and back would either tilt the cutter back making the ledge of the channel not 90 degrees to the sides and also make height of the binding different...especially in the waist area..
hmmmm.
cheers Grant

No worries Grant,

If you want to go super simple you can replace the bearings with a length of 40mm dowel. This is a cheaper option but requires more attention when doing the routing. The most important thing is to keep the bearings or dowel hard against the side of the guitar. At the same time only the outer most part of the router base should be running on the top.

Ive been doing it with a full size router and the stewmac binding cutting kit but the results are variable. Ive just bought myself a binding cutting base for my Porter Cable Laminate Trimmer from Luthier Tools.

Cheers Martin

Martin,
now you got me thinking....Why only the outer edges of the base plate to run on the top..I'd of thought you'd only want like a small area around the cutter to be riding on the top...and as much of the base plate forward of the cutter and the outside edges to not be touching the face?
cheers grant

The idea of this jig is to register off the side of the guitar rather than the top of the guitar. The side of the guitar is flat while the top (on most guitars) is arched with the arch varying across the guitar. The only parts of the jig that should be touching the guitar are the two bearings (touching the side) and the area of the router baseplate resting on the area of the top that will be removed by the cutter. The rib plate on thse jigs is such that a good couple of inches of plate are registering on the outer edge of the top forward and aft of the cutter.

To see what Im talking about go to the Luthiers Tools website and check the pics and video clip of Chris's jig in action. This is the jig Ive just bought and should have in my shop shortly, its a Rolls Royce version of the Williams jig.