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My "simple" binding jig worked great!

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 4:17 pm
by dzthings
After much apprehension, I finally took router to guitar to cut my first binding channels. It went so well, that I figured I should share what I did - maybe it will help someone.

Like many on this forum, I obsessed about all the different gizmos I could buy or make to do this task. I really spent so much time thinking about it, it's sort of embarrassing. In the end I decided to buy a Bosch Colt. I thought I would build one of those guitar hold down cradles, but wounded up simply using tool drawer liner (non-skid), and a bungee cord:

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I had to move the bungee slightly when I got to routing the waist, but it wasn't an issue at all. The guitar hold was rock solid.

For the jig, I used only components that came with the Colt kit and some scrap wood. I took some of the accessories apart and put them back together like this:
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The baseplate is maple, and the lexan is just to apply even force to hold it down. I made the baseplate to contact the guitar top surface as little as possible, but wide enough to clear the perfling channel.

I had to put some masking tape under one of the brackets to make the dowel perfectly vertical. What I found was that by holding the tail end of this jig with one hand and the router with the other hand, it was very easy to control. I quickly found that if both the dowel and bearing contacted the sides, this cut a perfect channel. If there was a space between the bearing and the sides, then I needed to align the router so that it was touching. Like I said, really easy to control - and I really had almost no touch up to do. I was kinda shocked, to tell the truth. I also think that wearing earplugs helped keep mytension down a notch :D

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I've been keeping a blog of my first guitar build - a stewmac dread - you can check it out if you'd like at
http://www.dzplanet.com

BTW - this forum is fantastic, what a great community!

Joe Dz

Re: My "simple" binding jig worked great!

Posted: Mon Mar 04, 2013 6:37 pm
by  
dzthings wrote: BTW - this forum is fantastic, what a great community!

Joe Dz
Joe,
Welcome aboard. Posts like yours contribute to making this a great community.

-tommy

Re: My "simple" binding jig worked great!

Posted: Wed Aug 23, 2017 10:59 pm
by Kbore
Four and a half years later, this was a very useful post! Thanks to the author, where ever he may be!