Guitar Making

So I temporarily gave up on cutting the binding channels by hand, so I bought a jig from Luthiertool. It's a handheld jig that uses a laminate trimmer/router. I can't fully recommend it yet, I'm still getting used to it. It uses two bearings to register against the side to keep the tool right side up. If it accidentally tips inward, it cuts the channel too deep and can make a divot. I had to add more purfling trim and cut a deeper channel because this happened a few times.

So here's the tool and the channel around the edge that I just cut.



And here's another view after I'm done.



You can see it's sort of a "stair step" channel, the black & white purfling trim will go on the upper inside step, and the koa binding will go on the bottom outer step.



I haven't been very good about taking pics lately. I had a number of screwups trying to install the purfling around the back edge of the guitar. Twice I glued the purfling in and then routed it off to redo it.

So here it is with purfling installed on that inside step of the channel.